No One Truly Knows the Battle Another Person Is Fighting
During my life, I met thousands of people. Miners. Entrepreneurs. Architects. Salespeople. Industrialists. Fathers. Mothers. Young people filled with great dreams. Older people carrying a lifetime of memories. And in the end, they all taught me the same lesson. We can never truly know what battle another person is fighting in silence. Some people smile while their heart is breaking. Others make plans while living in fear. And some people reply:
"I'm fine."
While deep inside, they only hope someone will ask them one more time:
"How are you really?"
Marco was one of those people. He never wanted to burden others with his worries. He wanted to bring solutions. Not problems. That is a quality I always admired in him. But looking back today, I understand that precisely such people are sometimes the hardest to reach. Because they are so accustomed to supporting others. Because they think asking for help is a sign of weakness.
But it is not. Quite the opposite. Sometimes it takes far more courage to say:
"I'm not doing well." than to carry everything alone for one more day. As a father, over the years I asked myself the same questions countless times. Could I have noticed something? Could I have said something different? Could I have protected him better? Those are questions no answer will ever truly satisfy. And perhaps that is the heaviest burden a parent can carry. Not the absence of answers.
But the endless search for them. Over the years, however, I learned something else. Guilt is a poor counselor. A father may ask himself questions. But he must not condemn himself for what he could never have known. I loved Marco. I stood beside him. I believed in him. Until his very last day. And he knew that. I am profoundly convinced of it.
When I think back on him today, I do not want people to see only the difficult moments. I want them to see the love too. Our conversations. The work we built together. Our journeys. Our dreams. Our laughter. That was our real life. The trials formed part of our story.
But they were never the whole story. And that distinction matters. Many people remember only the final chapter of someone's life. I want to continue remembering Marco as he was in all the chapters before it. The curious little boy. The student fascinated by new technologies. The proud father who looked at his children with such joy. The entrepreneur who believed the world could always become a little better.
The son who became my best friend. That is the Marco who continues to live. Not only in my memories, but also in everything he left behind. In the people he inspired. In the ideas he helped bring into being. In the love he gave so naturally to others. And perhaps that is what truly remains when someone is no longer with us. Not the mistakes that person made.
Nor the difficulties that person had to endure. But the love left in the lives of others. Even today, I still feel pain when I say his name. That pain will never disappear completely. But beside it lives something else. Pride. Gratitude. And love. An immense love. A father does not cease to be a father when his son is no longer there. He remains a father.
Every day anew. Until his final breath. Perhaps that is the deepest meaning of love. A force more powerful than time. More powerful than distance. And even more powerful than farewell. That is why I am writing these pages. Not only for myself, but also for his children. For my granddaughters. So they will always know who their father truly was. A man with an immense heart. A man filled with great dreams.
And a man whose love reached much farther than he could ever have imagined himself.