My parents and the meaning of life.
"E CHI T'AMMAZZA".
I remember every summer we spent in Sardinia with my father, my mother, and my older sister.
Every ray of sunlight, the warmth of the air, the coolness of the breeze, the wind, the scent of myrtle warmed by the sun — a unique smell that I have never encountered anywhere else in my life. The rough but deeply human Sardinians. The sheep, the seadas, the seagulls.
I remember my father handing each of us a slice of watermelon, with his presence so full of pure Love, and an expression on his face that felt infinite whenever he looked at us. To me, it was as though God Himself was looking at me through his eyes.
He would hand us a slice of watermelon, then sit in the sun eating his own, telling us that nothing could possibly hurt us in that moment ("Tiè, e chi t'ammazza". “Take this, nobody can kill you” in Roman slang).
Every year, my parents repeated and showed us what life meant to them.
Sardinia showed it to us too.
The ability to look at the sea and say, “What a beautiful sea,” instead of, “We could build an amazing water park here and make money from it — strange that nobody ever thought of it before.”
The watermelon, the sun, the sand, the myrtle, the seagulls screaming in their strange language full of vital force, Us.
And then I grew up, moved away, and started talking to people, really listening to them. I kept hearing about how important it was to “make money,” to work constantly, to hustle for the big stylish apartment, for the television bigger than the one you had before, for business class because otherwise the flight to Vietnam wouldn’t be enjoyable — all of it supposedly in order to finally be happy. And I didn’t understand it, and I still don’t.
Every time, my mind goes back to my slice of watermelon, and to my father’s blue eyes, and to God behind those eyes.
Sometimes, though, I have to admit it: I too have thought about that television, that apartment, the idea that I needed those things to be happy.
I have thought about it, but I think one of the most powerful lifeboats in our lives is the positive memories we carry with us.
It’s important that I never forget that slice of watermelon, those days at the seaside all together, beneath the sun and the fury of the seagulls.
