The last look and a goodbye in 1986 and, after almost 40 years, the embrace that reunites them. The siblings from Sassari Gavina, Vittoria and Andrea Addis found yesterday in Sassari the youngest child of their family, Antonio, taken away by social services and given up for adoption 39 years ago. It is the office of the lawyer Salvatore Lorusso, who with the lawyer Filvia Monteleoni assisted the adoptive parents, to host the reunion that concludes a decades-long search.
"I asked about him everywhere, on TV and in the newspapers," Gavina recalls. And it is precisely an article from Unione Sarda from 2023, in which the firstborn launched yet another appeal for that missing relative, that was read by Maria and Mario, the adoptive father and mother . "We immediately wanted him to know his roots," she reports, also a support administrator. A path that however required the mediation of the guardianship judge. "She told Antonio that she had another family in Sassari. And he was moved," recalls lawyer Monteleoni.
"We didn't know anything either," Maria emphasizes, "except that her mother was called Giovanna. In fact, every May 24, for San Giovanni, we have a mass said in her memory." She died at just 47 years old, from the consequences of a serious illness, shortly after Antonio was born . The almost forty-two-year-old was shown photos of him as a child of just 2 years old in the Sassari nursery from which, one day, he was taken away and placed in an institution. A court decision motivated by reasons we won't dwell on and which created that painful physical fracture for the brothers, unaware even if Antonio was alive or dead.
"I took care of him before they took him away from us," Gavina recalled with emotion two years ago. "I wasn't even 16, but it was my turn." The resemblance between the four is evident, as are the differences. But the genetic legacy is there, on faces and eyes, to tie destinies traveled at a distance. In the meantime, Antonio learns that, without suspecting it, he has become the uncle of nephews and great-nephews, who perhaps one day he will meet . In the meantime, he is looking for a job, but not only: "I help a volunteer association and I strum the guitar," he says, revealing his passion for rock music from Litfiba to Deep Purple.
This is the first information exchanged to create a common ground from which to start again to try to recognize each other, with the stages that the guardianship judge will mark. In the meantime, however, the most beautiful surprise has happened: a family has reunited .
