It has passed about fourteen months since my father’s departure, but it still feels like he started his journey to the sky yesterday.  I have been thinking about him every day, I have been feeling his presence and love in all the good things life can offer and his good soul has been giving me the strength to cope with the difficulties of those days in which I did not have too much energy left to work and to live.  Dad has always been extremely supportive and proud of my career even when I was not able to find too many motivations.  His constant support and his love have always given me so much positive energy to recharge myself in those days the bipolar disorder was bringing me down and to keep never giving up.  All those positive emotions have always been present in the passion I have been putting in my research work, cooking, gardening, cycling, playing football, volleyball and all activities I enjoyed doing.  We could not be more different from each other.  My father has always been a very patient and extremely sociable kind of person, while I’m easily irritable and not as communicative as him.  Perhaps that is one of the reasons why I miss him so much.

Finding a job in Italy last year and going back to my home country to work in Pisa at Scuola Normale Superiore, which is such a prestigious academic institution, are products of his love.  He would have been so happy for me to see I finally succeeded in getting a job in the same region of the city of Florence, where he worked and met my mother, the love of his life.  Florence is only a bit more than 50 miles far away from Pisa.  Although I have visited Tuscany, especially Florence and Siena, several times in the past, visiting again Florence last January after almost eighteen years since my last trip to the city where my parents met has been a lovely, magic and difficult experience at the same time. I would have really loved visiting Firenze with my parents. We have been making plans for our special trip to Tuscany so many times, but we have kept postponing our vacation for different reasons. Although I have never lived in Florence (if we exclude the time I spent there when my mother was pregnant), I feel like there has always been a strong bond with the city and its people. The city is simply a magical place and it seems like I am time traveling when I walk down its streets.

My dad was a devoted football fan since he was a young kid.  After the war football had become almost a second religion for many Italians, and my dad started cultivating his passion for Cagliari, the team of my hometown, Fiorentina, Italy and football in general.  When he used to work in Florence he was also the president of the Cagliari football team supporters club.  In the late 60s early 70s Cagliari was one of the strongest teams in Italy thanks to a great coach, Manlio Scopigno, and many talented players, such as Gigi Riva (the most prolific striker Italy has ever had) Albertosi, Tommasini, Domenghini, Nene’, Niccolai and others, who were also playing for the national team.  My father had the pleasure of seeing that extraordinary team playing and winning the Italian championship in the season 1969/1970 (the first and so far only scudetto for Cagliari in about 100 years of history) and those players made it also to the Mexico 1970 World Cup final, loosing it only to the extraterrestrial Brazil of Pele’.  He managed to know and to hang out with those players and he kept being involved in so many charity games they played after they retired.  These men, who became heroes of the entire region of Sardinia for that stunning victory, had a great consideration of my father, who has alway been a very sociable, constantly smiling and easygoing person.  I remember him being able to start a conversation with everyone.  I was always surprised of how many friends he had.  I wish I had inherited half of his social skills and his patience.

Last March Davide Astori, the captain of Fiorentina, who also played for Cagliari, passed away suddenly overnight.  His early departure has been such a deep loss for his beloved young family, his close relatives, the city of Florence, the football teams of Fiorentina and Cagliari, the national team and everyone who had the pleasure of knowing him personally.  I remember my father talking about him so many times when he used to play for Cagliari.  On the same month there has also been another big loss in the world of science with the passing of the great scientist Stephen Hawking, who has defeated so many adversities during his wonderful and full of love life.

At the beginning of last week my grandmother, my father’s mother, passed away at the age of 99 and for my family it was like reliving the same sad experience of last year.  She was a lovely, peaceful and strong woman, who helped so many people throughout all her long and happy life.  I will never forget her love for all her grandchildren, which she expressed in so many beautiful ways.  She used to prepare delicious meals for me when I was still attending the university, she was really an excellent cook, and she supported me a lot during my years as a student.  I will always remember her patience, she was as patient as my father,  her smile, her peaceful blue eyes, the same color of my father’s eyes, and so many good things she did for me, my family and all the people had the pleasure to know her.  Now she is reunited with grandpa and dad in heaven.  They have become our guardian angels and, hopefully, we will see each other again in a higher dimension.  I also like to think that now my father, my grandmothers, my grandfathers, my relatives and friends are now hanging out with other beautiful and good people, and all of them are helping the Lord in bringing peace and love to our world.

 

 

 

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