“A little red chair, a cane, a father, a son”. The little red chair almost disappears under Cesare’s arm. It is made of wood, it was by his Flori. He had given it to him when he was little and now it is his father who uses it, on an unnatural journey where the parent goes to his son’s grave. Every day, for 13 months, twice a day for three hours in the morning and three in the afternoon, since Florindo left for a brain tumor. The walking stick is the cruel counterpart to a child’s chair and is there to facilitate those now heavy steps up to the grave of a man of 51 years still and forever so son to this father who has turned 82.
By now everyone knows Cesare at the Venetian cemetery in Serego, a small town in the Vicenza area that has 6,500 souls. They call him the ‘guardian’. And he stops to talk to everyone: with widows who prepare flowers for their husbands, with children who have lost their mothers or fathers, with those who leave a flower to a brother who is no longer there. Everyone greets him. But then time stops and the ritual that he is so capable of reassuring begins. Arriving at his son’s tomb, Cesare arranges the small chair, built for the weight of a child and certainly not for that of this man who is not resigned. Yet, as if she too knew, he prepares to welcome the rest of a father without breaking up, and to allow him to talk again with his son, even without ever receiving an answer again.
The flowers brought to Florindo are always fresh, and he smiles forever, almost from behind, on a photo in which he is dressed in white. Cesare greets him, caresses him with his eyes and polishes the photo with his hands, speaks to him, remembers so much life together, his kindness. An often silent dialogue that ends with a sigh and a goodbye the next day.
The red chair under one arm, the cane on the other. Like twice a day for four hundred days. And the hope, postponed only until tomorrow, that an answer can come from that photo, even just “hello dad”.
Source: Ansa
I have been working in the news industry for over 10 years now and I have worked for some of the biggest news websites in the world. My focus has always been on entertainment news, but I also cover a range of other topics. I am currently an author at Global happenings and I love writing about all things pop-culture related.
