I would
have liked to start this year telling you all about the hand made gifts I prepared for my family and friends last Christmas, unfortunately something occurred to
change my plans.
Few days ago my beloved auntie passed away, so suddenly, even if she was unwell for such a long
time, affected by the ravages of Alzheimer disease her memory was slowly fading away, but
her sweet smile never ceased to light her face whenever she met my eyes.
When we
were little children we used to spend all the summer school holidays at my
grandparents’ house where my aunt Mariannina lived, it was at that time that my
brother started to call her “zia mamma” “auntie-mum” because she really meant
something special to us.
Going out
with her was always a great experience, she allowed us to do little things that
our parents always deny, often you'd have two little children shouting out of a car window to the cyclists along the road, "you're the last, looser!!", we laugh so hard with her as she lead us in high jinks.
She was a
woman who really taught me to be brave, ok maybe she was not very
successful with me in particular, certainly if I ever climbed a tree is thanks to
her. She was always extremely positive and supportive, she never let you down,
always present, always extremely generous and always able to make you feel
special, at least for her.
After breaking my leg when skying, I will
never forget that she was next to me when I woke up from an operation, even if
she herself had an operation few days before, she traveled from Rimini to Rome, when not being well herself, to
hold my hand and I will never forget that kind and generous spirit.
She was
unconventional for her age, she got a degree in Pharmacy when women rarely
reached university education, she was driving when very few women had a driving
licence, importantly what she really left was a mark in the life of whoever she met, glowing with her bright and sweet smile.
She decided
to change her career into teaching Maths and Sciences, something she did so well that
people decades after being her students, when meeting her would still addressing her with a “ciao Prof”. My small regret is that I
wish I had such a good Math teacher I wouldn’t be so mathematically challenged now.
I was always reprimanding myself on my efforts to calculate simple formula, telling this to her she would always smile back to me, her sweet smile, with a little melancholy in the later years.
I was always reprimanding myself on my efforts to calculate simple formula, telling this to her she would always smile back to me, her sweet smile, with a little melancholy in the later years.
I will miss
everything about her, during the later years when the disease had left only a shadow of her full beauty and brightness, her eyes of an indefinite colour between
green and light brown, expressed more of her unbound love than what she was actually able to speak
out...
