What Marco Left Me
There is a great difference between saying farewell and learning to live with someone's absence. A farewell lasts only one day. The absence remains every day. After Marco's death, everything changed. Not only within our family, but also deep within me. The world simply continued moving forward. People went to work. They made plans. They laughed. Celebrated birthdays. And looked toward the future.
For me, however, time seemed to have stopped. At every family gathering, one chair remained empty. At every birthday, one voice was missing. And in every joyful moment came that brief, silent realization: Marco should have been here. Slowly, I began to understand that grief is not only pain. Grief is also a form of love. A love that no longer has a place to express itself.
At first, I thought I would mainly have to learn to live with that emptiness. But over the years, I discovered that Marco had not left me only an empty chair. He had given me so much more. Some people leave behind a great fortune. Others, magnificent buildings. Still others write books or make inventions that outlive them. Marco left me something else. He taught me to look at life differently.
That may sound strange. Normally, the father teaches his children. And yet, over the years, I understood that my son had also become one of my greatest teachers. He taught me to look toward the future without fear. At a time when many people still saw computers as little more than complicated machines, he already saw endless possibilities. Where I saw a screen, he saw a window open onto a new world.
Where others saw limits, he saw opportunities. He was curious. Always. When he did not understand something, he wanted to examine it until he had fully uncovered its secrets. When he believed in an idea, he devoted himself to it completely. That was a quality I admired enormously in him. He was never satisfied with a superficial answer. He wanted to know why. And above all... how it could be done better. That way of thinking kept me young too.
Thanks to Marco, I remained open to change. I learned to listen to younger generations. I discovered that age must never be a limitation as long as curiosity remains alive. We spent countless hours speaking about technology. The Internet. Three-dimensional visualization. Software. Possibilities that most people still regarded as science fiction at the time. Sometimes I did not immediately understand everything he tried to explain to me.
But I always understood his enthusiasm. And enthusiasm is contagious. That is why I was never afraid of innovation. Quite the opposite. I always tried to welcome new developments with sincere interest. And I owe him so much for that. But Marco taught me something else, something far more important. He taught me that love is not always expressed through grand words. We did not tell each other every day how much we loved one another.
That simply was not who we were. Our love lived in the simplest things. In our journeys together. In a single look that said everything. In a hand resting for a moment on a shoulder. In searching together for the solution to a problem. In an espresso drunk side by side in silence.
Today, I understand that those simple moments were precisely the most precious of all, because they were genuine. They needed no applause. No audience. Only two people who understood one another deeply. From those memories, something slowly grew that, during the first years of my grief, I would scarcely have believed possible. Gratitude. Gratitude that I was able to have Marco in my life for nearly thirty-seven years. Because he was my son. And because he will remain so forever.
Gratitude because we were not only father and son. We were also friends. Traveling companions. Colleagues. How many fathers can say they were fortunate enough to experience that? Not many. I can. And I will remain grateful for it until the end of my life. Today, Marco's chair is still empty. But in my heart, he is completely present. Not only as the memory of what I lost.
But as a living force that reminds me every day how precious love truly is. The pain of his absence has not disappeared. But the way I carried that pain slowly changed. Over time, love began growing through the grief. A day comes when we no longer mourn only what we lost. We also begin to smile for everything we received.
That does not mean we deny our grief. It means love proves stronger than grief. Today, whenever I discover something new about artificial intelligence, technology, or our constantly changing world, I often catch myself thinking:
"What would Marco have thought about this?"
I am almost certain he would have been enthusiastic. He probably would have had ten new ideas immediately. And I am just as certain that he would have tried to convince me to start another new project together. That thought always makes me smile. Not because it is really happening.
But because it is so completely Marco. He continues to live. Not only in my memories, but also in my way of thinking. Every time I remain curious. Every time I want to understand something new. Every time I refuse to believe that something is impossible. In those moments, part of Marco continues to live within me.
Perhaps that is the greatest legacy a human being can leave. Not a fortune. Not buildings. Not companies. But a way of looking at life. And for that... dear Marco... I will remain grateful to you until the end of my days.