The heavenly signs pierce the soul, harsh and devastating.

You can see them in the eyes of a wounded Haitian child caked in mud, gasping for life after Ike, the Category 3 hurricane that killed more than 300 and left a million homeless. Feel them in the tremble of a sobbing father holding his dead little girl. Hear them in prayers of Miami's Little Haiti community to Notre Dame du Perpétuel Secours, our Lady of Perpetual Help.

You can track the signs, too, in Hurricane Ike's path through Cuba. It roared through Nipe Bay near Santiago, where almost 400 years ago on that very day two young Indian brothers and a slave boy survived a storm and found a floating wood statue, bone dry, proclaiming ``I am the Virgin of Charity.''

LOST OPPORTUNITIES

As a multitude of Cuban exiles solemnly prayed the rosary Monday on the anniversary of the virgin's apparition, Ike's trajectory became a replay of historical misses and lost opportunities.

Ike kept pushing, challenging, reminding us of old battles as it ripped through central Cuba and swirled just a few miles from Playa Girón where young exiles fought in the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.

By Tuesday, Havana's old buildings were crumbling from Ike. The storm was blamed for the death of at least four Cubans in other towns and was expected to do more damage to an already devastated Pinar del Río province, where Gustav 10 days earlier destroyed crops and 100,000 homes.

How many more signs before we walk the compassionate conservative talk?

Haitians without U.S. immigration papers deserve temporary protected status. If not now, when? That immigration category is used during times of natural disasters and wars, giving undocumented immigrants the opportunity to remain in the United States and work, just as Salvadorans and Nicaraguans have been allowed to do.

You can't send help to your loved ones if you're in an immigration cell, unable to work for no other crime than your status as persona non grata.

South Florida's congressional delegation has consistently called for TPS for Haitians. Republicans and Democrats, alike, see the moral imperative. Republican U.S. Reps. Lincoln Diaz Balart, Mario Diaz Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen quickly called on President Bush to do right by Haiti on TPS, as have Rep. Kendrick Meek and other Democrats.

A KEY MOMENT

Students of history know there are pivotal moments that offer remarkable transformations. The collapse of the Berlin Wall that led to the end of the Soviet empire caught the West by surprise. Ike may be our test.

For Bush has the opportunity to rise above the expected political drill of nothing for Cuba until the Castro brothers leave. It's good to see the Treasury Department is poised to approve new licenses for nongovernmental groups to offer hurricane relief to the Cuban people, but we can do more.

No one with any sense is saying dump the Cuba embargo and kiss up to the Castros. But what's so wrong with a 90-day window for Cuban exiles to rush to their families left behind and offer help, as Democratic congressional candidate Raúl Martinez has suggested?

I suspect Fidel and Raúl won't allow it. They only care about free credit so their already debt-driven government can get U.S. goods for nothing. Let them play politics with Cubans' suffering.

We are better than that.

Even for 90 days, only for 90 days, let's get rid of the political babble, the white noise and seize the challenge of our better angels.

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