My Mother - The Silence Where Love Lived
When I think of my mother, it is not her voice I hear first. It is her presence I feel. Some people fill a room with their words. My mother filled a home with warmth. Her name was Guglielmina Di Pasquale. To the outside world, she was simply an Italian woman. To us, she was the heart of our family. She never tried to draw attention to herself. She wanted neither praise nor admiration.
Her greatest wish was simply to see her children happy. My mother did not have an easy life. She lost her daughter, Lidiola. She watched her husband leave for Belgium to work in the coal mines. Then she, too, left her native country so that our family could be reunited.
When I think back today, I often wonder where she found such extraordinary courage. For she almost never complained. Perhaps she believed that a mother had to be strong. Perhaps she did not want her children to see her sorrow. Or perhaps, to her, love was simply something one lived. Not something one spoke about. I remember her hands. Always busy. Kneading bread. Cutting vegetables. Mending clothes. Sewing on a button.
Wiping away a tear. Those hands scarcely knew rest. As a child, you do not notice such things. You simply believe that mothers will always be there. Only as you grow older do you begin to understand all the love hidden in those small daily gestures. My mother did not need expensive gifts. Or distant journeys. Or luxury. Her greatest happiness was seeing her children gathered at home.
When the entire family sat around the same table. When laughter filled the house. When everyone had enough. That was her wealth. And I believe that way of looking at life became part of me. Later, I traveled widely. I met thousands of people. I sat at the tables of successful entrepreneurs and businesspeople.
But I never felt richer than I did at my mother's kitchen table. That is where I learned that happiness does not depend on what is on the table. It depends on who is sitting around it. Sometimes I wonder whether I thanked her enough. Probably not. Children always think their parents will be there forever. Only when they are gone do we truly understand all they gave us.
My mother did not give me long speeches. She never explained how I should live my life. She showed me. Through her patience. Through her simplicity. Through her faithfulness. Through her love. And perhaps that is why I still feel her so close to me today. Not because I see her every day.
But because every day I find something of her again. In a gesture. In a memory. In the way I look at others. If someone asked me who the most important woman in my life was, many would expect me to answer immediately:
"My wife."
But that would not be fair to my mother. For before I learned to love as a husband, I first learned to love as a son. And we carry that first love within us for the rest of our lives. I sometimes think that mothers never truly die. As long as their children continue to live by the values they passed on, they remain beside them. That is how it is with my mother. She continues to live.
In me. And in everything that, because of her, I had the chance to become throughout my life.
