One Final Walk Before the End
Now that I have almost reached the final pages of my life story, I feel as though I am walking its entire path one last time in my thoughts. Not to tell every detail again. I tried to do that in the preceding pages. But to pause once more beside the people, places, and events that shaped me.
When I close my eyes, I see Loreto Aprutino. The small village in Abruzzo where my story began. I see the hills. The old houses. The olive trees. And the roads my parents walked long before they could imagine that their children would one day grow up in Belgium. In my thoughts, I see my father leave. A young man leaving his wife, his children, and his familiar surroundings behind to work deep underground in a foreign country.
He did not leave because he did not love his native country. He left because he loved his family. I see my mother. The woman who remained and cared for her children with immense courage as she waited for the moment when our family would be reunited. I later see them in Belgium. Two people who possessed little, but who tried to give their children everything within their power. With them began the long road that ultimately led me here.
Then I see our De Lindeman mining settlement. The simple homes. The mining families. The different languages blending together. The poverty. But also the solidarity. I see the miners leave. Men like my father, who descended into the darkness in the morning and returned to their families in the evening, exhausted. I see the school. My first friends. The games in the street. Italian lessons. The church where I was an altar boy.
And the child who still had no idea of everything life would later hold for him. I see our move to the Liège region. The farewell to the familiar world of my childhood. The uncertainty. The first steps toward adulthood. My first love. My first professional experiences. And the young man who increasingly began to think:
"There must be a better way."
I see Dorina. The woman with whom I shared almost an entire lifetime. I see our first years together. Our dreams. Our difficulties. Our joy when we became parents. I see Marco and Michael again as two little boys. I hear their voices. I see them play. I remember them growing and the way each slowly developed his own character and his own path.
At the time, we could not yet know how much happiness, but also how many worries, life would bring our family. I see my parents grow old. My brothers. My family. My friends. The people who walked beside me for years. And those who were part of my life only briefly, but who nevertheless left a lasting memory. I see the years when I worked and dreamed. The coffee machines. DOROMA. The tiles. The Italian manufacturers.
The journeys. The customers who became friends. The ideas that became companies. And the projects I sincerely believed could change the world a little. I also see the difficult years. The crisis of 1981. The debts. The home we had to sell. The moments when everything seemed lost. The people who helped me begin again. And also those who distanced themselves or betrayed my trust.
In the past, I sometimes felt anger about that. Today, I no longer do. That does not mean I forgot everything. Certain events left deep marks. But I do not want bitterness to have the final word over my life. When I think about those people today, I feel above all that each of them, consciously or not, became part of my story. Some taught me what trust means. Others taught me to be more careful.
Some helped me remain standing. Others forced me to rediscover my own strength. Without all those encounters, my life would have been different. Perhaps easier. Perhaps harder. But certainly less rich in lessons. I see the Glass Pyramid. I see Marco before his computer. I hear his enthusiasm again as he spoke about technology and new possibilities. I see us debate. Make plans. Travel. Work. Dream. I see him as my son.
As the father of Chiara and Laura. As an entrepreneur. As my business partner. My traveling companion. And my friend. I do not see him only during his final months. I see him as he was throughout his life. With his curiosity.
His smile. His courage. His vulnerability. And his immense desire not to disappoint anyone. Beside him, I see Michael. Not in his brother's shadow.
But in his own place. With his own character. His own path through life. His quiet strength. And the bond we rebuilt during the past years in an unexpected and especially profound way. I see him as my son. As the father of Helena and Andreas. And as the man who continued making his own choices. Then I see my four grandchildren. Chiara. Laura. Helena. Andreas. Four young people, each with a character of their own and a future of their own.
Chiara and Laura carry with them the memory of their father Marco. Helena and Andreas know him as their uncle and as an important part of our family's story. But none of them must be only a bearer of the past. All have the right to write their own story. To follow their own dreams. To make their own mistakes. And to find their own place in the world.
When I look at them, I understand that my story does not truly end on the final page of this book. It only receives other narrators. My parents began a story whose ending they could not know. They passed something on to me. I tried in turn to pass it on to my children. And today, part of it continues to live in my grandchildren. Not as a mission. Not as an obligation to relive our lives.
But as a set of roots from which they can draw their own strength. Every generation writes its own chapters. We are never the entire story. We are one page between those who came before us and those who continue after us. Perhaps that is one of life's deepest truths. Sometimes we think everything begins with us. And as we grow older, perhaps we fear everything will end with us.
But neither is true. We receive. We add something. Then we pass the story on. That is why I do not end this walk through my memories only with sorrow. Of course, the pain remains. There are people I miss every day. There are words I would still have liked to say. Moments I would like to live once more.
But beside that sorrow, I feel profound gratitude. Gratitude that I was fortunate enough to know those people. That I was able to be their son, brother, husband, father, grandfather, colleague, or friend. That I was able to love. To dream. To fall and try each time to rise again.
From here begin the final chapters of this book. Perhaps they are not the chapters containing the most events. But they carry within them the meaning all those events acquired for me after so many years. What do I want to leave behind? Why did I write my story? Where did this long road ultimately bring me back? And what did life truly teach me? With those questions, I continue the final part of this journey.
Not with the feeling that everything is finished, but with the awareness that no life story ends entirely as long as someone continues carrying its love, values, and memories. The final page of a book is therefore not a true ending. It is only the moment when the author lays down his pen and entrusts the story to the reader. And if, after me, something continues to live in the hearts of the people I loved...
then that will be more than I could ever have dared to hope.
