Last 15 September 2008 a dear friend of mine, Albert Porreca, passed away leaving great projects to be finished, a family that needed him, affectionate friends and colleagues. This untimely loss started a deep uneasiness in me - what if I had to leave everything, suddenly, tomorrow, what loose ends that no one will be able to take up again, what impossible to heal wound will I leave in my children, and the passwords of my bank accounts, the payment that will continue to be charged on my credit card, which no one knows...
Albert taught me one final thing, and since September I started to get ready, I did not know I was getting ready for the earthquake, I thought something else was coming to disrupt my settled world, a disease, an accident, a loss. And a dire loss it was. But it was not just me, it was not personal. It was cataclysm, a proper Greek world that indicates the sudden subversion of everything that was before. At 3.32 of 6th April ironically my little-used mobile was ready in by bag, with a full charge and credit, the charger was there too. My laptop was ready with the most recent works and backup of all website and accounts password.
Yea, laptop and mobile were ready. But at 3.34, the moment I saw in the full-moon sky my city's strangely different profile, smoke and dust rising from the Collemaggio hill, the Casa dello Studente and Campo di Fossa, sirens howling, desperately screaming voices, an abyss opened in my soul, I was aware suddenly of the so many just two minutes before living creatures whose souls were now rising with the dust - that moment I knew I was not ready, not ready to see that beloved, mortally wounded skyline.
As Winston Churchill was the glue in the long months of bombing on Britain, someone must become the glue of all the displaced survivors of Abruzzo, who like me were not ready for this, that are trying to cope with new environs - we are looking for this someone, this something. Displaced, dispersed, mourning, homeless, Aquilans need the charismatic words that will inspire their rising again.
This inspiration breaths as healing winds, wiping tears, in the hard-headed determination - so Abruzzese-like -, the unselfishness and courage of the Protezione Civile volunteers, in the choruses coming through the blogs, poems, diaries being written and shared, deep-felt testimonials, and the encouragement, sympathy, funds, flowing from all over the world towards us like a refreshing waterfall after walking through a deadly desert, the desert where also the burying place of Camilla Lopez in Fante's Ask the Dust was forgotten. Every thank you, in every earthquake-stricken voice now tolls with the broken sound of the bells rescued from the church of Onna.