Una Cosa E' Una Cosa

My son, Antonio, serendipitously found this note written as a dedica from my mom in Alberto Moravia’s novel, ‘Una Cosa E’ Una Cosa’ on my bookshelf of favorite Italian books.

I wrote it to myself thinking of what mom would have said to me in 1967 as I journeyed through the troubled waters of life in Boston.

In the randomness of the universe, things happen for a reason. I know that the rediscovery of the note is for a purpose beyond my imagination and life cycle.

Re-reading it, I am inundated with serenity and I hope it will make you feel that you are never alone.

Here it is:

“To my son Pasquale so that,

through Moravia’s readings may realize

the value of life. That

just living is sufficient to

make a man happy.

Therefore we must make of

our lives ‘an art’ that for its fascinating beauties lives

eternally in our thoughts,

our meditations of the past,

the joy of the present and the

hope of the future.

July 5, 1967

Affectionately

Mamma

Graziella”

[Since my mom was seriously ill (and she would have died if a gifted life-giving surgeon at Boston City Hospital had not intervened), she couldn’t have written it. However, In my heart, I knew she was thinking it.]

Post Scriptum: After the surgery (approximately one year after we landed at Logan Airport), my mom lived a long life ‘living’ what I wrote in 1967.