Anghiari si racconta

I was born on the 10th June 1957, in Sansepolcro. I come from a family of, let’s say, operai (workers) – my father was a very good bricklayer, my mother was initially a housewife and then she worked with an aunt making beach accessories, hats, bags and so on. I grew up with my paternal grandparents, who lived at home with us, nonno Domenico and nonna Mabilia, and the relationship I had with them was very important, particularly that with my grandmother.

My grandparents both came from families who, for many generations, had been farmers. But due to, let’s say, problematic family dynamics, they left the farm (il podere), the big home, in 1955. For my grandfather in particular this was an enormous trauma, because, all his life, he had cultivated the land and he had been head of the family, being the oldest son in a patriarchal family. Then suddenly he found himself outside that context and it was a terrible blow – it was his nature to get easily demoralized. On the other hand, my grandmother, nonna Mimma, as she was known in the family, was a very resourceful person – I identify with her in many situations. Anyway, they went to live with my parents in this new, small house that my father had built. One of my father’s sisters, who wasn’t married, also lived there.

My father had another sister, an older sister, who was the pride of the family because she studied languages and graduated from Florence University in 1942, when she was just 20 years old. Then, after the war, when she was working as an interpreter in Perugia, she met her future husband, who was an American officer, of Romanian and German background. She moved with him to America, to Pennsylvania, where my uncle taught German at the university, at Wilson college, in Chambersburg. My aunt had a love of books and was a feminist, and, as a bookseller in the ’70s, she specialised in books about women artists. She donated many books to the National Museum of Women in the Arts and also to the Library of Congress, where there is a collection in her name, the Cesi Kellinger Collection.

And this is all about the family on my father’s side. My mother’s family was a big family, there were 10 brothers, lots of uncles… let’s come back to us!

I was born 2 years after my grandparents had moved into the house with my parents. I basically grew up with these grandparents, and they had a big orto (kitchen garden), and when I was little I would always be behind them, among the small plants. I loved it a lot, I really loved it, and so I learned the first rudiments of botany from them, how to recognize plants… it is a kind of sixth sense. My grandma taught me household chores, because in those days there were still jobs strictly for men and jobs strictly for women. And so, she taught me how  to make pasta, tagliatelle, and sewing…

I have happy memories until, I didn’t understand it very well, but I sensed an unease at home …. My aunt had become pregnant, and, in 1960 to have a child out of wedlock was seen as shameful, rather than a celebration, as it should be. She was sent to Narni, near Perugia, to have the child, so that no-one would know, and then, a couple of years after the child was born, she came back home. But not everyone was happy about this, so the dynamics in the family were tense. And the financial situation was difficult because there were 7 of us and only my father worked. And so, all in all, memories, lights and shadows.

I started school, and at the end of the first year I got sick, and they didn’t know why – my blood parameters had plummeted. At the hospital at Arezzo they diagnosed leukaemia and told my father I had four months to live. It was a terrible shock for the family and my father lost his hair. I stayed at the hospital for over two months, went home for 2 months, then I went back to the hospital, and inexplicably I got better. It was later diagnosed as bone marrow aplasia. Slowly, slowly I restarted my life and I didn’t have any more health problems after that.

Our family life continued… in 1965 my sister was born, 8 years younger than me. Then, in 1966 our grandfather died – he had developed Parkinson’s and other health problems.  My aunt and cousin lived with us until 1968 when she went to work and live (dama di compagnia) with the family of a local politician. Life was quieter, my grandma was serene… And then in 1969 she suddenly died and this… for me it was a terrible trauma, because it was I who found her – a child, seeing this nonna like that, on the floor, and I didn’t realize that there had been the event ‘death’…. Grandma died when I was 12. I decided to go to the scientific lyceum in Sansepolcro. After 5 years I had my diploma and I enrolled at university in Florence, where I studied biology.

When I was in the third year of the lyceum, I met my future husband, Paolo, who is from Pieve Santo Stefano. He is a turner and was working in Arezzo. When we met, I had to introduce him immediately to my parents, because you weren’t allowed to go out without… and so we say ‘I took him home’. We married in 1983, the year I graduated from university.

Before we married we had begun to build the house here in Anghiari, where we still live. That was in 1976. Dad had a firm with a friend, and they came here to Anghiari to finish building a house, and there was this plot of land nearby… and anyway they started to build this house, thinking they would sell it, but then, after talking it over together, they decided to keep it for their families, to share the apartments between their children. And that is why we came to Anghiari, from Sansepolcro and Pieve. We did a lot of work on the house in all our spare moments – it was like our home, our ‘nest’ for when we would be newlyweds. So, on Saturdays, Sundays, during all the holidays, we were always helping. Slowly, slowly this house was finished.

I finished my studies, we married on the 26th June’83, I graduated on the 8th of July, and on the 11th my father fell from a roof. He fell, he fell from a roof, yes. At the time it seemed a minor accident, he had a small lesion to the spine, and with rest, with care, it would resolve itself. He came home from the hospital in a cast so that he couldn’t move his back. On the eve of the 27th of July he started to feel ill, he had pains. So I called the emergency: ‘Intercostal pain due to the cast’. The following morning we called the family doctor, who gave us the same answer. The afternoon goes by, and the situation doesn’t improve, so, at 7 o’clock we call the ambulance. While waiting for the ambulance he started to feel really ill, the ambulance arrives, they got him in the ambulance and I go with him in the ambulance … we take him to the hospital …and he dies before my eyes, my dad, he dies. And… this yes, yes… I closed my father’s eyes and this has been the event that, in my life, has been a turning point, the ‘before’ and the ‘after’.  I had a great rapport with my dad – he was an intelligent man who understood things, and I could talk with him about everything. When he had the firm, I helped him:  I would come back from university, and I would help him tie the iron rods for the beams, for the reinforced concrete, bring him cement, sometimes I’d pick up the people who worked with him. I had a kind of collaboration with him.

So, after my father died, then, we had to close the firm, pay the suppliers, pay the workers …. At home, the situation was a tragedy – mum was very, very close to dad, so the loss of this young man was devastating. Mum was 53, my sister was 17 … and so, a tragedy. We, newlyweds, stayed at home with mum and my sister till December. Then, we moved here, into our home, and then we were expecting the birth of our first daughter, Luisa – our first joy. But, in the meantime, my way of looking at life had changed. Before dad’s death, I had given more importance to external appearances. After his death, my motto became: ‘One can find a remedy, a solution to everything, but death’ – the loss of a beloved one, for that, there is no solution, there is only a loss and a great pain … a radical change in life, a change. And then the oncoming birth of Luisa…

In those times, getting a job as a biologist, in Valtiberina would have been difficult, but anyway, I made a choice: I wanted to care for my baby daughter. Then, when our second daughter, Fabiola, was born, I also cared for her. I made the choice to be a mum. I always did some temp jobs, private tuition, but I raised the girls. These were serene years.

Both the girls did well at school – they both went to the scientific lyceum in Sansepolcro. Luisa did medicine, and now she is a heart surgeon at the Cisanello Hospital in Pisa, having also been in London. At the moment, Fabiola is living with us: she and her boyfriend are expecting a baby -. I will be a grandma – and they are preparing a flat to move into. I think that in a month, in May, she will take flight. Fabiola is 27 and Luisa is 34, and then there is Marco, the ‘smallest’, who is 21. He still lives with us, and is studying singing – he is a bass singer, in his second year at the Cherubini Conservatorio in Florence. At the moment he sings only in the concerts at the end of year, but last year he sang a small part in The Magic Flute.

I am extremely happy, extremely happy. There have been many difficulties, but, in my union with Paolo, there has been strength, understanding, love, sharing. We have been married for 35 years, plus the 9 years when we were engaged, and I always say that I am sorry that I don’t have more time to spend with him. My husband is a special person. He is a patient man, a humble man, always available, he is full of love for his kids, for me, for everybody. How can I put it… one has only to ask, if we mention something, he always dedicates himself to doing it. With his kids, he has never told them ‘No, this can’t be done’ or ‘No, I will not take you’. Generous, loving, caring. And, with my mum he was very affectionate.

My mum died two and a half years ago, on the 4th of October 2015. She was 85 years old, but it was like she … she wanted to unplug, she was tired of life. In 2006 she had surgery for bladder cancer, and that had limited her freedom, and from then on she started… But she also had some reasonably passable years, good years. Then a year, a year and a half before her death, she started to decline, and there was nothing we could do. All the medical tests were ok, but she wanted to shut down. So, it has been a deep sorrow, in the sense that, after her death, I felt unprotected, exposed. I didn’t feel like a ‘daughter’ anymore, in the sense that I felt ‘I am alone on the front line’.

This is a different kind of sorrow from that of my dad’s death. His death was unexpected; he was young, and so it was about not being able to share with him so many steps of our life, the birth of the grandchildren, the joys they gave us… Instead, mum saw them all, but there is this sense of loss. Slowly, slowly, one recovers, but then there is always this… this loss, this… in a way I feel alone, yes.