Unsent Letters #7

Small memories, overalls, and goggles

Photo by Katarzyna Kos on Unsplash, rendered black & white by me

Dear Grandpa,

You would have turned one hundred and nine two days ago, on January first. At a time when people make big plans, I want to write to you about small things. About small memories. "Alone, then, you will understand that the small things make you important, and the big ones make you smaller." I read this somewhere, recently. It’s the beginning of a poem by Paolo Cerruto¹. 

There was a spot you used to sit in to get some breeze in the summer afternoons, always at the same time. I once came and sat next to you, and told you about my life plan. You listened and said that I sounded enthusiastic, and that this was a valid reason to go ahead with it. 

Some time passed, and when I got the admission letter I was waiting for, it was summer again and you were sitting at your usual breezy spot. I came and sat next to you, the letter still in my hand. You said that you remembered our conversation and made a confession: you didn’t know what I was talking about, but I was so fired up that you were happy for me no matter what. What do I know about going to study in America and all those fancy jobs, you said. You saw that twinkle in my eye, enough for you to know that what I had in mind would be worth pursuing. You’ve worked a manual job your entire life and your preoccupation was to put food on the table every day. Your generation lived the war at home and having one more day, one more week, one more month was the only plan. Then you said something I’ll never forget: the long term is made of many short terms.

I don’t know much about who you really were, about your beliefs or ways of interpreting the universe. You weren’t very talkative, and I first was too little to wonder and later too respectful and intimidated to ask. I was told something, but don’t have any direct memories. I always find it hard to come up with a grand, comprehensive description of someone. All I notice are the small things. Details I pay attention to, words that I hear them utter, movements, gazes, tastes, habits. 

Of you, I remember the little, silly jokes meant to make me laugh in the face of mishap as a little kid. “I was supposed to trip on that myself,” you used to say after I’d fallen and injured myself. Or “They must have cooked it with fire,” when I’d burn my tongue with a hot soup. And then there was that old trick I kept falling for, “What weighs more, a kilo of iron or a kilo of cotton?”. A kilo of iron, of course, I’d unfalteringly respond. Remember those? You kept at them even when I wasn’t a kid anymore, and they continued to make me smile. They gave me comfort.

I remember that you used to watch cycling on TV, something I wasn’t interested in the least, and always wore a brownish three-piece suit, a white shirt, a dark tie, and a Borsalino hat on Sundays. When Dad was traveling, Mom took us to your place for lunch on the weekends. Grandma made tagliatelle, and you were there, at home, dressed up in your brownish suit. They said you were good at your job, sought-after. An artist of sorts. Some of your creations are still around. When I came over to your shop, you were always busy working on some incandescent piece of metal in the back. It was so dark in there that all I could see was the red-hot shape of what you were trying to mold, as if floating in mid-air. I’d then adjust my vision and see you, in overalls and goggles, smiling at me. I thought that only abnormally strong men could work the metal like that, and that you were the strongest man on Earth. When I was little, I often asked to feel your biceps.

Life went on and you got sick and doctors said you didn’t have much time left. We were expecting our first child. It was near the end, maybe you don’t remember this, but you promised me to hold up until she’d be born. You wanted to see her, and wanted her to be able to say I met my great-grandpa, albeit briefly. Not very many people can say this, I guess. I for one can’t. You left us just a few days after her birth.

At the cemetery, they buried you in recess number three fifty-six. Three fifty-seven was vacant at the time, and Grandma bought it right away. She wanted to be buried next to you when her time would come. And now, there you are, both of you, next to each other. I never attributed too much value to cemeteries and graves -- a collection of remains, of biological containers turned into dust. Some people like to think that they go to the cemetery to visit the dead. That they reside there, waiting to be called on. I don’t, but then again who knows where you guys are, if you’re anywhere at all. 

Perhaps you can come tell me, in a dream. They say that dreaming about dead loved ones is always revelatory of something, or premonitory. I’m not asking for much, I don’t care about money-making tips or what the future holds and things of that sort. I just want to know where it is that you’re working your incandescent metal, in overalls and goggles.

---

"Unsent Letters" is a series released every other week. These are imaginary letters to fictitious or real individuals who may or may not have influenced my life, not always mirroring actual events.

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1. Solo, poi, capirai

che le cose piccole

ti fanno importante
e quelle grandi
ti rimpiccioliscono

decrescere è maturo
senza cader dall’albero
da cui sopraelevati
osserviamo un secolo
superbo e sciocco

così misero
nel brulicare
di formiche egoiste

così buio
nel luccichio
di orizzonti verticali

i fuochi d’artificio
sono SOS
lanciati alle stelle

[Paolo Cerruto, 2014]