Letter to my dad
Dear Dad,
a few days ago I made lasagna. I followed your recipe and, to be honest, they were delicious. Except that I was missing something and thinking about it for a while I realized what your secret ingredient is.
In mine there were hunger, Sunday laziness and a little watering. In your lasagna, Dad, there is always love. In every bite I felt the affection of someone who prepares a dish for someone he loves. To console me after a bad day, to celebrate my birthday or my return from a trip, to reward us after having repainted the walls in the living room.
If I think about it for a moment, Dad, you are in my life at all times; when I cook, when I prepare the mocha (with your infallible technique), when my computer jams while I work and when I listen to an old song.
Not to mention when I discuss with my partner and it seems to me that you are talking in my place!
Would you ever have said, Dad, that the same things make us angry? Some women look more and more like Mum while I'm becoming your female alter ego. What a laugh when I think of all the times we disagreed . "You never listen to me, one day you will change your mind" you told me and you were right. Yet we needed to fight, a few years ago this was our job: you had the duty to straighten me up, to deny my reckless requests and I had the task of getting angry, of holding your face for days. Now I understand how much my haughty silences hurt you but as we got older we softened and became more and more united.
I know that all dads are special, but you are the most special of all.
With you I have lived incredibly beautiful moments, those that, usually, are lived with friends. Like when I was eighteen and my little sister was about to be born, when my mother was in the hospital ready to give birth and we were alone at home, we looked like two out of office students. And when, a few hours later, the baby was born and the nurse called us both to meet her. How happy we were and how much we cried!
I also remember when you bought your new car and ran home to ask me for a ride with the Deep Purple at full volume.How many times have you played the guitar for me and how many songs we wrote together! How many coffees in the long winter afternoons, how many wise and sensible advice, how many secrets we told each other in the kitchen. Until I went to live together, quite a long way to tell the truth. And do you know what makes my partner happy? The fact that you trust him, that you entrusted him with "your little girl".
Now that we are far away it's like when you taught me to ride a bicycle: you took off my wheels, you pushed me to pedal, I peeled my knees but you are always there, a few meters behind with a watchful eye, ready to run when you see me in trouble.
It's kind of sad not to be able to spend this day together, dad. But we must admit that we are lucky: we are all healthy and serene and, even if at a distance, we are there.
But do you know what I'm telling you? If you were here with me, I'd make you lasagna.
