Andria, 23 January 2023
In this transcendental silence, I decided to write to you. Dearest Father, how are you doing? I hope all is well up there, have you met with mum? Your Lilly arrived, a little later, at the big date with God, but, of course, she is there with you now. Now you walk, again, hand in hand, you are both on foot, she took you everywhere in the car, she was happy to do it, by now your eyes were suffering. Please father, she continues to pray for us, she watches over us who are down here. I often speak to you from the bottom of my heart, don’t get tired of listening to my difficult vicissitudes, I speak to you and write while tears run down my face. Unfortunately I haven’t lost this habit, you know me well. Your little girl hasn’t changed, despite a few years older. I speak with you, or rather with you, “with your silent ashes”, you, being a man of letters, know well who wrote these so intimately touching verses. Intercede with the Good God, father. It’s late at night and my thoughts run quickly on this sheet of paper that moves with me. Talking to you helps me relive everything, you are still with us, you are still here. We feel your caresses and there isn’t a day that we don’t talk about you and mother Italy, you are a constant example to our children. I’ll tell you more, leafing through the family albums, first my children, now my grandson, you know I’ve become a grandmother, they are curious and ask about you, seeing the beautiful photographs that portray you in times gone by. Memories follow one another, they pile up in my memory, the experience emerges forcefully. The great journeys all together, the prayers on Christmas nights, your words written on cards that accompanied the gifts of the Befana, your shy and happy laughter, your mother who pinched your right cheek, laughing too, your tucking us in, your invitation to pray to Jesus before falling asleep, our walks arm in arm, along Corso Cavour, everyone greeting you with affection and stopping you on the street. I felt proud of my father, of my great dad. However, I cannot forget your sad face when you returned after a misunderstanding. You, a free and liberal man, did not like following the fashions and conformism of the time. How much was your commitment to the grandiose square (one of the many that anonymously bears your name), dedicated to San Francesco, the saint of the “Canticle of Creatures”. You know, father, your book dedicated to the Saint of Madonna Povertà was given to Pope Francis in his audience. But let’s get back to us. That square, as conceived and conceived by you, no longer exists, it was distorted, in 2008, in its original symbolically valuable architectural form, which the architect Paolo Pastore had created graphically. Its simple and complex elegance, at the same time, told a lot about the Saint that you wanted to point out to future generations for his modus vivendi. Even today, many remember you and cite episodes of your goodness. How many works have you done silently that, with your discreet manner, you have never told us. By now, it’s almost dawn and I have to leave you. I know you are calm, you live in spaces without borders, you walk along privileged and luminous paths, where there is no darkness in the heart of a man accustomed to being limited and deceitful, opportunistic and tied to constraints of pure interest. BE happy with your mother, you now live on the island of Great Thought. Your wonderful being and having been shines in the heart of God, abode of Peace, where his caress is the great triumph. You are on the island of the great and not on that of the forgotten. Thank you for what you have instilled in me, taught me, given me in affection. Hi dad, say hi to mom.
See you next time Rosella.
PS it certainly isn’t up to me, as your daughter, to praise you, but I have overcome my reticence, filial love has had the upper hand.
