We had been for much of the summer vacation the year before Anna Maria and I to discuss and plan the celebrations for our silver wedding, arguing about every detail.
-First you go to church for mass.
The diktat of Anna Maria was the first frog to swallow. Take it or leave it. What to do? I had taken, of course.
celebrate in the same place-quarter of a century ago, argued Anna Maria.
The hotel restaurant, "Rome" in Palmanova was surely a great local, but they had opened in the meantime at least two other equally welcoming. We know, however, that women are romantic and conservative of all the old stuff. And men? Accepted, not for a quiet life or because they are assholes, but why do not you break my balls too.
sbracato So I was across the board. At the bottom was a day of the ca. Next would come after another twenty-five years.
Everything seemed settled. But already in early October it was clear that the year was coming, 1988, it was not like the others, except for our anniversary. There he said the belly of our daughter Stephanie, who grew every day.
How nice to become grandparents, look 'just in May, so she and the child can not attend the party in Italy.
Then in November Manfred, the author of the low blow, he had decided:
-We are getting married in February.
Great! So even skip the celebrations of the birthdays of the two grandparents.
-Let the whole party, Anna Maria snapped.
With cheese! Who will row two fifties at a wedding of two boys of 22 years, with a Topo Gigio already kicking out?
-Want to show off by force? Anna Maria asked me angrily.
imagine, but who cares. Become a grandfather, you would like to? And what a nice party! And what beautiful people! But what good meal! It matters little that has cost me a packet of Deutsche Mark. The lady ...
-Silence, unbeliever! Think of our granddaughter.
I think about it and how. Other grit shell out nearly half the amount planned for our silver wedding goes marching and beating up.
time, however, to start doing the math, from Italy, our first child we furious assaults on the phone.
-That is to say that I am the most stupid of the house!
That seize it now? He looked so peaceful.
-Quiet? Cracked, I would say I am engaged to be married four years and now my sister?
the -Monica ... circumstances ... the eye of the people ...
Col-hunting!
and slams the phone down.
The cloud has thickened: the sky turned dark and already beats the strong storm.
two days time, and Monica is back on the phone.
-We are getting married in June.
End of communication.
pissed If I do double effort, as everyone knows.
So?
So I'm not angry. I take two weeks vacation in June, I prepare for the new blood-letting in the Bank and good night.
Stefi was married in February, with the belly and smiling. He seemed in a trance.
Cristina arrived May 10, exactly 22 years after his mother.
I phoned my mother as a guest for several months in a nice retirement home in Garden City, in a neat and airy room with sea view.
waiting for me and my little family to move forward with two weeks at his home in Civitavecchia. He waited for the last look we had exchanged at the end of August the year before, when I put the bow back toward the north.
-Quest 's all year wrong, but.
-Do not tell me you're not.
Woman on TV in a panic.
-No, do not worry. I take a vacation for the rest of August and come down with the two boys.
On June 22, returning home after the wedding of Monica, as we passed the Austrian border in Tarvisio, I said a couple of harmless joke to Anna Maria, "this coming and going in a few months will not make us feel better this year. " I swear that I was not thinking about money, but in less than forty days would have passed that way again in the opposite direction.
I thought, I thought, I deluded to do it in less than forty days.
the end of that month, however, unexpectedly my mother-in-law's heart suddenly gave way. He was taken to a hospital specializing in Gorizia, but it was running out.
The news of death came to me so that Anna Maria had the strength to pick up the phone in his hand.
I took the rest of the holiday and left scoured.
July 7 at the funeral and then all the pieces of a lifetime to collect.
One Thursday evening I told my wife:
-Tomorrow I leave. Rest a weekend trip to Civitavecchia her.
I took over at 10 Saturday morning, after having signed a release form, which I take full responsibility for everything that could happen.
-Not gonna lose an eye for a moment I said to the director-noon Monday and consign them to you free.
50 hours with my mother.
For me a premiere, for her infinite joy.
-Are you alone?
Anna-Maria has a lot of legal and administrative problems, the boys go to the beach, Monica is on honeymoon, and Stephen has a doll that takes away all the time.
My mother, however, is only interested me: his application was to make sure I did not have much to think about.
For 50 hours I did, "the woman" I prepared breakfast, lunch, dinner, spent the vacuum throughout the apartment; riparai a lamp that did not work for years, but above all I spoke.
I talked, talked, talked.
And she stood there in silence, listening.
Three great things that were taking place:
-my mother was silent;
-I was talking to her;
-I was with my mother for an entire weekend.
The first situation had never occurred.
The second rare times.
The third almost never. The last time I was 13 years.
-Why do not you say anything? I asked.
for thirty years-Why did not you say anything else but the greetings when you arrive and when broken down.
I want to impress-your voice in mind, he added. The riascolterò any time after you're gone.
It was at that moment, I think, that I decided to tell my childhood, as seen from my side, because you come back and I young child. I was deluded to amaze me-here, this is the version of the Enzo, but I realized from the expression on her face that she already knew all about the inner life of his son, baby boy of his son, had not missed anything. I was not able to hide even what I thought, because now that I believed to reveal the very first time, as if some secret, I saw her smile every time even before it concluded the sentence, all sentences.
I had been for her a printed book, as I felt an indecipherable enigma.
I do not know why, but I felt lighter and more happy after finding out.
At the end of the fiftieth riconsegnai now the director of the hospice.
-I'll be back at Christmas, but, also brought Anna Maria.
I went more peaceful: I finally met my mother.
"Anna Maria will be happy to come down at Christmas", I thought.
But in early October I came down alone at full speed with my 2500 turbo to seize at least the last breath of my mother.
a crazy race against time, against the stroke that had knocked the brain.
Al "Pavesi" Florence did a full tank of petrol, I drank coffee in a hurry and I called my sister in law.
-I am in Florence, arriving an hour and a half.
-Take it easy, he said, passed away an hour ago.
On 31 December 1988 that took away thankfully happy and unhappy, where everything had happened, where I become a grandfather, twice-in-law, where she died the mother of Anna Maria, who loved me as a son, and where I had lost my mother after getting to know her really.
Only our silver wedding anniversary had not been celebrated, and nobody speak again.
0 comments:
Post a Comment