During those times, I used to chat more than usual with my daughter. She is 23 and lives in Italy, far from me: I am Italian, but I live in Brazil.
Now we have a nice relationship, but we passed through some bad moments during her adolescence, mainly due to my divorce from her mother when she was four.
One day, during our morning chat, he asked me some memories of her grandfather, and she insists on knowing more about him, but she finalizes the sentence with an unexpected “…and about you also”.
This lights a red alert in my brain: what my daughter and, generally speaking, people I love, really know about my life? Finally, we are passing through hard times and the risk to die without the possibility to speak to anyone is f**ing real.
It is well clear in my mind that I am not Napoleon, but I see my life as a beautiful and rich story with some great moments and also with some learning passages that can be useful to my sons to understand life better and share the values that guided me until this point.
A lot of my story can remain untold and this scares me. From a certain point of view, if anyone knows, I never lived my life and my life decisions will remain not completely understandable for my loved ones. I am very little interested in the destination of my physical remains, but I have a sincere desire to be remembered by my sons and, maybe, grandsons as a good person and with my little stories.
I think that this is what gives us humanity and density in other people's memories.
Yesterday I start to write my biography. Thinking well, probably this term is too serious for my life. I will name it “Memories”. Biographies are written by others, with some doses of the balance of judgment, and I do not have such big aspirations. I want only to leave my memories, as I remember them now and as joyfully I can.
As an experience, I found that it is very good to remember my life, find better words to describe it and try to transmit deep sensations to a restricted, well-known audience that will judge us with a lot of tolerance given by love.
Think about your life: it deserves to be remembered. Write it down with love and compassion for the old yourself. I can assure you that is warming and motivating.
Ciao.
