Havana ? For Adelfa, every Mother’s Day is the same. Her son in New York will either call her one day before or one day after. So it goes, too, with her daughter in Orlando.

“It’s true the phone lines are too congested,” said Adelfa, 60, who asked that her full name not be used. “But I also think they prefer to call before or after because they’re so sad about not being with me. My son told me: ‘I can’t call you on Mother’s Day because I have too much work. I’ll call you Monday.’ But I know. I’m his mother.”

For Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits, holidays such as Mother’s Day illustrate the human cost of an ever-widening political divide. Although just 90 miles apart, the U.S. and Cuba never seem more distant than on occasions when families traditionally get together.

“On Mother’s Day, I don’t even think about seeing them,” said Adelfa, a retired chemical engineer who lives alone on the outskirts of the Cuban capital. “Forget it. Don’t even mention it. That’s a day for families. There are dinners and gifts and cards. For me, it’s very sad.”

Pamela Falk, a law professor at the City University of New York, said the heartbreak of the Cuba-U.S. relationship is the divided family. The decades-old trade embargo against Cuba coupled with more recent travel restrictions have hurt only families, she said.

“Because it’s been over four decades, the parents are aging more in Cuba and children want to see them and say goodbye,” Falk said. “The embargo has made it much harder for Cuban Americans to visit relatives, particularly in emergencies.”

Adelfa said she planned to spend Mother’s Day at home with relatives, poring over photos of her son and daughter in the United States. She proudly pointed to a picture taped to the refrigerator of her daughter’s 2-year-old son, Matthew, who was born in Florida. The grandson she has yet to meet is wearing a T-shirt with the words, “All-American Baby.”