The news came in summer, it was a sunny day. It was hot, very hot. We left Rome by car, with Stefano. With very few words toward Montecatini, almost no one on the road. At San Biagio, the cathedral among the fields, there were lots of people. We greeted each other, dazed, in silence. The priest was saying something, speaking slowly. In front was the coffin. The one real thing present. To say it seemed impossible is not enough. It was everything and nothing. There was the scandal of someone who will never be here again. There is the end of life. The regret and the offense. The feeling of injustice at having no defense. And a painful tension in the vast church. That would not dissolve. Then the mother, a slight woman, went to the microphone and spoke to us, so fragile and tense. “Andrea wants me to tell you that he says goodbye to you. I never thought I could do so much but I feel he is close to me and wants me to be speaking to you. Andrea tells me to tell you that he loved so many, not just all of you but each of you, one by one. It is he who is close to me, he wants me to tell you, and he holds me up. And that he thanks you for being here, and that he is beside you.”
And here came the shivers, here came the tears. The confusion. I saw the coffin go by, carried by four people outside, toward a car standing still, black. And outside the despair grew, on the grassy square. The anxiety, and everyone stood still. The father leaning on the coffin, motionless. An obsession that led toward something. And indeed something happened. Around, on the surrounding hills, the sun was clear. Over the church the sky turned dark. dark. And then a taut rain burst, violent. Most violent, only over us, over the church, while the car seemed. And we recognized him, in the sign of an irresistible, invincible surrender, of a power that rises, of becoming something else, of a farewell, a goodbye. Of a power that embraces, like a storm, right to the heart. The last sign was, violent and beautiful, one of love.