Gina Montaner lanza nuevo libro llamado “Deséenme un buen viaje”
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PeopleTranscript
00:00Obviously, we want to welcome Gina Montaner, journalist, very loved in the media.
00:11I think it's the first time we have you in Book Corner of People en Español,
00:16which was also started by a mutual friend, who was also my boss, Armando Correa.
00:23And well, today we are going to talk about your new book called Deséenme un buen viaje.
00:30This book is about your father, Carlos Alberto Montaner,
00:34who was a political analyst, writer, Catholic, Cuban refugee.
00:42And well, it's a delicate topic, an important topic.
00:47We are talking about euthanasia, but I don't want to talk about that part anymore,
00:52because I think it's especially about his life.
00:55Welcome, thank you for being here.
00:57Thank you, thank you, Mayra, thank you for having me in People en Español, I love it.
01:03So, well, let's go back to the year, I think it was 2018,
01:07when your father received this Parkinson's disease diagnosis.
01:13And I want you to tell us, explain to us a little bit what happened after that diagnosis,
01:18because it was evolving and not necessarily in a desired way.
01:24Well, as you know, neurodegenerative diseases, and Parkinson's is one of them,
01:29are chronic, debilitating and incurable diseases.
01:35And the end is usually the total deterioration,
01:39especially with what are the very limited cognitive and physical abilities.
01:44My father, as you said, was a writer, political analyst, columnist,
01:49activist also on the subject of democracy in Cuba.
01:53So he had a very active intellectual life.
01:56When he understands that what he has left is an end that he did not want,
02:04after the diagnosis he has, logically, a few years in which he fights against the disease
02:09and has a life with a certain quality of life, well.
02:13But when he understands that the disease is already approaching him completely
02:18and that it is going to be very hard, he asks me, he asks the family and especially me,
02:23that he wants to return to Spain, we lived in the United States,
02:27and accept the euthanasia law, which has been legal in Spain for a little over three years,
02:34and he was a Spanish citizen. And there we started a process.
02:40It was 2021, right? I think that law was already authorized in Spain.
02:48My question for you is, how does a daughter receive the wish of a father like that?
02:53Who was also a man, as they say in English, larger than life.
02:57A gigantic man, right? How did you receive that news?
03:03It was very hard, Mayra, it was very hard.
03:06It was not something that surprised the immediate family, the few of us who knew.
03:14Because my father was a man who had always defended individual freedoms
03:20and had even written columns defending the euthanasia law in extreme cases.
03:26It is very important to know that the law in Spain is only for incurable and extreme cases of disease.
03:37So it didn't surprise me, but it was my father,
03:40and a person that I loved and deeply love, and so it was hard.
03:46It was hard, but I was always very aware that I had to respect my father's will.
03:55You have been giving a lot of interviews, you were in Despierta América, you were at the book fair,
04:00and I don't know how easy or difficult it has been for you to talk about all this,
04:05because the book just came out in October.
04:11Someone asked you out there if this book has helped you heal, all this that happened.
04:19Well, I started writing it shortly after my father's death.
04:26So at that moment, when I wrote it, everything was very vivid for me.
04:32I had it very present, and I'm glad I wrote it like that, because it was all so alive for me.
04:44I could feel it, everything we had experienced.
04:48I mean, being with him at that moment, I mean, I wrote and felt it, right?
04:53So that was, I think you can feel that in the book.
04:57He accompanies me while I'm writing, in a way.
05:02Then what you tell me, in the presentations there have been emotional moments,
05:09it's inevitable, and also with a lot of people in the presentations who knew him, right?
05:16So in a way, along with a community that has also had it and still has it present.
05:25There are times when I'm asked if it has been a catharsis, right?
05:30Yes, it has been.
05:33Although I also have to say that the pain for a person you love very much is a process that takes time.
05:42And I'm still on that path.
05:45Now, let's go back to the title of the book, A Good Trip.
05:50Where does that title come from?
05:53My father, the morning the Spanish public health medical team came to do the euthanasia,
06:02which was done in the privacy of our home, with him surrounded by my family, my mother, my brother.
06:10The granddaughters were in the living room, we were with him at that moment when he said goodbye to life.
06:17And he told us, wish me a good trip, that's what he told us.
06:23I mean, he told us before that he had had a very full life, that he had been very happy, that he was going very calm.
06:30And what my father told us was, wish me a good trip.
06:35And it's interesting because you have spoken, you have explained, the title also has a double meaning.
06:42Can you tell us about that meaning?
06:44Because it's not just this moment in his life, I think you're also talking about his life, right?
06:50Yes, the book is somehow two trips.
06:55The vital trip that we had with a man like him, an extraordinary man, a special man.
07:02And with my mother too, right?
07:04They were a couple since they were 14 years old.
07:06They were a couple all their lives.
07:09The book goes back to the past, and I also remember what it meant to grow up with them,
07:17a family marked by exile, by eviction.
07:20The adventure of living with them, of living with my father and my mother.
07:25And then that other trip, which is my father's last trip,
07:30in which he is somehow telling us,
07:34I undertake this journey alone, and I say goodbye to you.
07:39That is his last trip.
07:41And I want to clarify that you have said, I think it was in the same Desperate America,
07:45that you are not being a spokeswoman or advocating for euthanasia.
07:54It's not your...
07:56No, not at all.
07:59It would never seem an offense to me, right?
08:03To dedicate myself to proselytizing about euthanasia.
08:06It was my father's story.
08:08It was what he wanted, and I defend it with my life.
08:11And that's why I helped him.
08:13What this book also, and everything I have lived,
08:18what you really have to defend is the quality of life to die.
08:24And in fact, many times there are so many families that do not have the means,
08:28that it is very difficult for them to take care of their relatives.
08:33I walked, I left everything to be with my father in those last months.
08:38But also because I was able to afford it.
08:41But there are many families that have many economic problems
08:46to be able to take care of their loved ones well taken care of.
08:49And what we have to demand is that we have good care systems
08:53for our elderly and for that final stretch of life.