Lidiola - The Little Sister I Never Had the Chance to Know
Some people accompany us throughout our lives. Others leave before we ever have the chance to know them. And yet they, too, can forever retain a place within a family. That was true of my little sister, Lidiola. I never saw her. I never heard her voice. I never played with her.
And yet I have always felt that she held an invisible place in our family's heart. When my father left for Belgium to work in the coal mines, my mother remained in Loreto Aprutino. She had to care for her young children. It was a time when life was simple but hard. Our home was modest. There was no running water. No central heating.
The fireplace was our kitchen, our source of warmth, and the living heart of the house. Our entire family life unfolded around that fire. My father knew the dangers of the mine. My mother knew the loneliness of the one who remained behind. She lived in the hope that one day our family would be together again.
But life decided otherwise. Then came the day no parent should ever have to endure. Little Lidiola fell into the fireplace. Despite every attempt to save her, it was too late. My mother lost her daughter. My father lost her too, hundreds of miles from home. He could not even return immediately to say goodbye.
When I try to imagine that moment today, what I feel most is an overwhelming silence. How many tears must have been shed? What guilt must my mother have carried in her heart? How powerless must my father have felt? These are questions that will never be answered.
Perhaps that is why so little was said about Lidiola in our home. Not because she had been forgotten. But because the pain was simply too deep to express. And yet Lidiola never truly left our family. Some people continue to live in the stories we tell. Others in photographs. She lived in an empty place. In a chair that would never be occupied. In a name spoken with infinite tenderness.
In my mother's eyes when her thoughts quietly wandered to a distant place. I have often wondered what our family would have been like if Lidiola had lived. Would she have come with us to Belgium? Would she have had children of her own? Would I have had a sister with whom to share my life? These are questions no one will ever be able to answer.
And yet they have accompanied me throughout my life. Perhaps that is also one reason family has always meant so much to me. Because I learned very early that nothing in life can be taken for granted. The person sitting beside us today may tomorrow exist only in our memories. We often think that our lives are shaped by the people who are present.
But sometimes they are shaped just as much by those we have lost. To me, Lidiola will always remain my older sister. Not because we were able to create memories together. But because she is part of the story from which I came. And perhaps that is, ultimately, the deepest meaning of this book's title: MY LIFE — IN THE NAME OF ALL MY LOVED ONES. Not only for those who are still beside us.
But also for those who left far too soon and who, despite their absence, remain forever present in our hearts.
