Ray Gamble used to be alone. Now he's the meat in a sandwich that's stacked four generations and two cultures high.

Ray lived in an apartment over Puttin' on the Ritz, a retro shop on King West that he's run for 23 years.

Now home is a century worker's cottage a few blocks away. Ray, 58, would have a hard time being lonely there.

"Did I envision life would turn out this way? No," he says.

Cuba, early '90s. Ray, ex-hippie and fascinated with Castro's revolution, goes to the island. He falls in love with the country and with a slip of a woman named Elena Caceres. He marries her.

That was 13 years ago. Elena already had a daughter, eight, and a son, 11. So the apartment over the store got traded for the brick cottage.

When Elena's son was 18, he and his young partner had a son named Christian. Six months later, the baby's mother died from a blood clot.

There in the hospital, they decided the baby would move to the cottage, too. "I was awkward with it," Ray says, "but the child didn't have a mother."

So that made Ray a granddad. And he's still a son.

His parents, Lily, 91, and Tom, 92, are a small, slim pair, light on their feet. They met at a dance in London before the war, married in 1938.

"We used to do long strides," Lily says. "He'd whisper in my ear, 'Stretch it, stretch it.'"

When the war was over, the Gambles sought a new start here, in a two-bedroom bungalow in Stoney Creek.

Tom and Lily did it all. They went dancing, camped all over the continent. Even in recent times, Tom still drove. He and Lily would head to the casino, to Hutch's. But a year ago, Tom got lost coming home from the supermarket. He knew he couldn't drive anymore.

And Lily was failing. She was pale, near bedridden, not eating right.

Ray talked to his wife. "In Cuba, if old people have family, they stay in the house," Elena says. "There will be 10 or 12 people. Grandmothers, mothers, kids. The house is for all generations."

Ray talked to his father. "Maybe if there was just one of us," Dad said. "It's too much."

So Ray helped his parents look at retirement homes. "The choice was not very inspiring," he says.

Without a word to his parents, he and Elena started reorganizing their little house. They filled in the arch between the dining room and living room to create a private parlour for Lily and Tom. The space at the back of the house went to their daughter, now a vivacious 22-year-old hairdresser.

They arrived in late April. It already looks like they've been there for years. "It was hard at first," Ray says. "We all had our habits and schedules."

Elena is at hairdressing school in the day. But she's home in time to serve a hot meal to Lily and Tom when they're used to eating, about 4:30 p.m.

"We ate frozen food for six months," Tom says. "My daughter-in-law gives us freshly cooked dinners every day."

That Cuban cooking agrees with Lily. "I never got out before," she says. "Now I go out nearly every day, even if it's just sitting on the porch. I guess I must be getting better."

Christian, 8, likes sharing his house. "It feels nice to have them here."

pwilson@thespec.com

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