FROM OUR REPORTER
PARTINICO (PALERMO) – «It should be here now. Here with us. We should laugh at something, fight over his Juve and hear him say that usual recommendation: save money, don’t burn everything you get. Sparagnate, as he said in Sicilian. Dad was like that. He was always thinking about the future, ours more than his. He broke his back to give us more opportunities than life gave him. And looking at things from this ending makes you sad. What’s the point of always living with the brakes on to give everything to the family and then dying like this at 59?».
Gaspare’s voice trembles with emotion. In his 31 years of life these words are the most difficult ever. Thinking about his father, Ignazio Giordano, “it hurts that I couldn’t even explain to you,” he says. But he and his brothers – Davide who is 26 years old and Fabrizio who is 25 – have decided to give a gift to that man who is no longer with us: a tribute to the memory of what once was. So as not to remember him only as one of the five deaths in the Casteldaccia sewer system. «So that there remains a trace of the wonderful person that he was».
What’s the first thing that comes to mind about him when you think about it right now?
«His always working hard to help others. Not just us in the family but everyone. That morning went like that too. She gave her life to try to save her colleagues in difficulty. He died a hero.”
How did you find out what had happened?
«Let’s forget about it, let’s go… just thinking about it makes you angry. I from my brother-in-law who saw the news somewhere and remembered that my father worked for the company involved. My mother from a cousin. He didn’t want to believe it. He kept saying it’s impossible. She rushed to the company to find out more and there an employee made her understand that dad was down there. Even today she doesn’t believe it. She expects that at any moment dad will open the door and come in… » Fabrizio intervenes « I’m a nurse, I work in intensive care. When we give serious news to relatives there is always a psychologist next to us and the doctors. And does he know how I knew? From Facebook news. I saw about the accident and called dad who always answered, day and night. When I heard the phone ringing I understood. Then we didn’t know how to find the right words to say it to Davide who lives in Germany. A friend of his thought about it, who read the news, went home and offered his condolences. He still didn’t know anything…”
Have you learned anything about the dynamics of the accident and the lack of safety?
“No. All we know is what we heard on TV.”
Was he a strict father? Gaspare replies.
«He was a just man and therefore had the severity of the right people. I would say rigor, rather than severity. Learning about life from him was amazing. He taught us rectitude, education and woe betide us if we raised our voices at mum. The respect and love for her has always been absolute.”
Davide interrupts his brother to repeat that yes, he was a hero, “a man to be respected and who was always there, you could always count on him in the dark moments”.
How much did he earn?
«Maximum 1,500 euros», Gaspare always says. «All of us in the family do jobs worth more or less 1,500 euros, we are humble people. We have never allowed ourselves to go on holiday somewhere together. Never excesses. He asked us to save for the future and then always found a way to help us buy a car and set up a house. I got married a year ago. I remember him entering the church with mum, we were so happy… in recent days we have seen the film of the wedding again. It was painful. My wife and I will have children, it hurts to think that he will never know them.”
What do you expect now?
«Justice, of course. We demand justice” is Fabrizio’s response (the family is assisted by the lawyer Bartolomeo Parrino). «We have a lot of anger inside us… we shouldn’t be here describing a respectable, correct, generous man, who died of work. Even from the way he died we understand that he was a person… he should be here with us and instead we saw him for the last time without life, in the ambulance that was taking him away. And lucky that someone warned us, even if not with the tact and delicacy of a professional psychologist. If we had arrived half an hour later we wouldn’t even have been able to say goodbye to him one last time.”
