Maybe he's already flying, on the wings of the world, in the infinite sky. He'd said it and sung it in the video when he was five, wearing a blue sweatshirt, with eyes the color of the sky: the kind that enter you and stay there forever. "I'll fly on the wings of the world, I'll fly in the infinite sky, I'll always be a child, and this is the destiny I'll meet... I'll fly, between dream and reality, and I'll hurt myself when I fall..." A week after his death, it almost seems like a premonition. "Maybe he already knew he'd stay a child. Maybe subconsciously, I knew it too, which is why I was so worried," cries Sonia, her mother. And her husband Francesco gently caresses her face. "He was my life. Our light." They cry together, remembering their only son, the light turned off at dawn on Friday. A week later, they cry again.
The tears
"I miss him, I miss him so much. But how can I do it?" cries mother Sonia Angeli; Francesco Corongiu cries too. "You ask yourself. Why him? Why us? But there are no answers," he says, already having a very tough battle to fight. And she must find even more strength, so it almost seems like an inhuman request. "Fili gave me courage, he said I was his superhero." They cry again, together, and then one at a time. Their minds wandering there, to that dawn of the day that will never come. The alarm on his cell phone, the alert in the app connected to the scooter, the phone turned off, the mad rush. "I knew it, I felt it." The blue lights of the ambulances, Filippo is on the asphalt, his eyes half-closed. " I held his hand, I prayed he would wake up. 'Fili, Fili, don't go away,' I repeated while they were resuscitating him." It was no use. Dead, pleas unheard. The rest is the white rose, grown at dawn, and two torn families. Two lives frozen, on a pole: that of Filippo and Gabriele Galici. There's the room as he left it, in the house in Monserrato: the bed made, with the three pillows Filippo used. "The other day I picked one up, I hugged it, I wanted to feel it." His mother feels it too, she has an "F" inside a heart on her left wrist. A gift from her boyfriend, who remained a child. "For my fiftieth birthday, he gave me 50 euros for a tattoo": she shows it, caresses it, as if wanting to bring that "F" to life; Filippo's, of fate, of the many perhapss that chase each other in the mind. "I gave him the scooter, for his promotion. But it could have happened just as easily while he was using a friend's. Feelings of guilt are human, but we are not to blame." They don't even feel guilty about life, which has never been very kind to them. He had given her that child, the only one, awaited for two years, and then he took him back.
The moment and the void
The mind wanders back, starting over from life; the life stored in cell phones that seem like secular tombs. The travel photos, the family reunited, smiling, the sky-blue eyes of Filippo, who would have turned eighteen in a few weeks. "He wanted to become an entrepreneur, he said he wanted to make a profit and not stay stuck in the office, because life was outside." He had a skydive planned, a coming-of-age party still to plan. His high school diploma, university, his future: everything canceled. After a night at the disco, with friends, with Gabriele, who had left with him. "He was so sensitive, he shared his snacks with his classmates who didn't have any. He was kind, determined. He started working as a pizza delivery boy to get his own money, he never asked us for it. He never asked." He gave, he gave so much, Filippo: you can see it in the many expressions of condolence and esteem they show on the two cell phones; may you find his entire life inside them; the one before, before that night without a day. "He lived life to the fullest, like all his peers. We would like to tell all young people to always remember that life is precious . Don't rush, whether you're in a car, on a scooter, or without a car, don't rush. Slow down, savor every day, hour, minute, second, seize the moment, because you never know what will happen." A week later, everything is as it was before, the silence screaming in the house that was never big but now is even smaller. The bed made, where Filippo will no longer lie down, the procession of friends and relatives who visit and try to comfort, but it's not enough. "I wish they would explain it to me, if the pain changes. How can you do it? How can you bear so much?" Sonia and Francesco cry, they hug, look at each other, caress each other, search for each other. And they search for answers. But there is only silence. "We miss him so much, so much, so much, so much that our hearts bleed." The white rose is still there, on the Poetto seafront. And the sun doesn't warm.