A farewell to a special person

By Djenar Siti

Some time has already passed since that 25th of May 2009 when you left us, uncle Eugenio.
This blog was already stuck before because of lack of time for my usual many thing to do. During this month and a half many things had to be written: not only train-of-thoughts, but silly or technical things too, from a Linux user life... but I couldn't let it be. It didn't seemed right to me, to write "anything" before having placed a farewell to you, on this little corner of the net too hard for me to keep up to date...

To say "goodbye" to you, it's not a thing I can accomplish in 2 minutes, even if I don't want to share with the net, abruptly, my deepest feelings, and that's right. Anyway, I won't write too much... but I simply need the right time and the suitable tranquillity, because this is a little thing but it's important for me.

So it's natural to think that the emptiness a person leaves in the other's life when her way in this world come to an end, is nothing but commensurate with how much that person managed to fill just other's life, getting in the game with her own unrepeatable qualities.
You lived like this, and that's because we miss you. But just because of what you left inside us and thanks to what we believe in, and what you helped us with your life to take care of, we aren't able to say us "desperate" even among this inevitable sadness.

This is already a great thing, and I'm grateful to you for this. As I'm grateful for your testimony and for your strength you paradoxically and very kindly gave us during your illness. Your "strong tranquillity" is helping us and will be always with us.

But although the beauty of your example and the clarity of your testimony in the time of trouble, I'd like to remember you in the time of peacefulness too.
My memories are the ones of a lucky child, grown up in a great family, in touch with cousins as brothers and with uncles and aunts as "second parents".

So my head becomes full of memories, small things, your "Good Shot!", your intelligent glances, your thinking moments, ...a wristband you gave to all we nephews when we were to the primary school, to initiate us to the football "faith" (and you managed very well with Alby and Teo, with the poor uncle Claudio fan of Inter who found his two children fan of Milan!)

And I recall my first time at the stadium (my only for a "serious" match to date)... I restored from my memories and from the web: it was April 17th 1994, Milan vs Udinese 2-2, the match that gave its 14° Championship to Milan in the 15th match, two before the end. It was the last italian championship with 2 point for the winner... and in that match in Udinese there was a player "Testaferrata" (Iron Head in Italian) who didn't have the head so hard since he fell down after an air-tackle with the big Desailly...

My memories go on with all the Sunday afternoons at the granparents' marked with the sport program "90°minuto" just before come back home... my thoughts flow to all your gags: when you went out to ring the bell, or when you shut down the light pretending there was a blackout... getting the relatives crazy and we children laugh. An at last when we were on the beach and you call out the wrong time looking at your watch, and making all the people check theirs!

And this playful part of your character we had the pleasure to know, completed very well your professionalism and precision you had in your work as a university professor, while you remained for your collegues, simply "Eugenio": a sociologist who loved the "city" and very careful to its issues and changes.
For this work and for your committment in the catholi association "Azione Cattolica" as President for Milan Diocese, you have been widely mentioned by the ones who shared this experiences with you in these years.
As for me, I had the pleasure to have you as an "uncle-president" while I was in the youth association. I had the chance to hear from you the picture of our present society and of the role of the citizen and of the Christian in it, in the occasion of some seminars.
I saw you put on challenge in person when just two years ago we gave birth to the italian Democratic Party so that Italian politics could finally start a new season. If I continue to believe in this effort although all the troubles, it's because of you too.

This is my remembrance I decided to share with my readers, its just the top of the iceberg.
For this and for all the rest, I want to say my "Thank you!"

These things, and many others, you have been... and you are again, in that "time" and in that "place" in which we will meet again.
But if it's true that those "time" and "place" are nothing but the most true "being" of the "here" and "now", it's not silly to feel that you are with us every single day with your peaceful smile and your smart glance upon the world :-)

Goodbye zio Eugenio!
Andy