"THANK YOU DEAR PAPA '" - Letter from the son of Paolo Borsellino I recommend you read this beautiful letter, word for word.
A man, a judge, a father ...
read this touching letter I felt a lump in my throat ... Admiration for
this man, as well as a judge, I found that gave the children of sound values, true values \u200b\u200b ... but anger ... because it was left alone to fight a war, killing was done because was a clean man ... the best people are afraid to "scum" of power.
The first afternoon of May 23 that a student in my parents' house, preparing the examination of commercial law, I was exactly the "zenith" of my university career. My father had gone, alone and on foot, eluding as only he could do the boys of Commons, the barber Paul Biondo, in the street Zandonai, where in the middle of the "cut" was reached by telephone call from a colleague who informed him of the assassination of John Falcone on the motorway Palermo-Punta Raisi.
I remember that my father, still with traces of shaving cream on his face, having forgotten the keys to the house knocked on the door while I was already petrified before the live television broadcast the first news about the incident. I opened the door to a man upset, I did not dare to ask him anything, nor utter a word. He changed
was advised not rushed away from home, can not remember if accompanied by someone driving himself or the car service, hospital where the first Giovanni Falcone, Francesca Morvillo then, would have lapsed between the arms. That day for me and my whole family marked a moment of no return. It was the beginning of the end of our father that little by little, day after day, until that tragic July 19, except in rare moments, it was no longer the same man irreverent and always ready to not take themselves seriously all knew.
I started to cry the death of my father while he watched beside the corpse of Falcone in the mortuary set up inside the Palace of Justice. I will never forget that day mourning the death of a colleague and close friend of my father but in reality it is as if advance his own already crying.
From May 23 to July 19 became very recurring dreams of attacks and war scenes in my city, but remove all morning, as if the nightmares do not concern me, and above all not been affected by my father, but my subconscious was the victim. After the massacre in Capaci, except in the following days, I continued my studies, exams commercial law, science, finance, tax law and private law of the economy. In my father felt a gradual detachment, the same would have received my sisters, but attributed it (and justified) to the workload and worries that assailed him in those days. Only after his death by his father Cesare Rattoballi knew that he was a wanted posting, calculated, because gradually, without major trauma, and then, we children we got used to his absence, and one day we were somehow "prepared" if he had touched the same fate of his friend and colleague John.
the morning of July 19, aided by the fact that it was a Sunday and I was now free from university commitments, I got up quite late, at least compared to the time at which you usually get up my father used to say that he got up every day (including Sundays) at 5 am to "fuck" the world with two hours in advance. In those days of July were our guests, such as d’altra parte ogni estate, dei nostri zii con la loro unica figlia, Silvia, ed era proprio con lei che mio padre di buon mattino ci aveva anticipati nel recarsi a Villagrazia di Carini dove si trova la residenza estiva dei miei nonni materni e dove, nella villa accanto alla nostra, ci aveva invitati a pranzo il professore “Pippo” Tricoli, titolare della cattedra di Storia contemporanea dell’Università di Palermo e storico esponente dell’Msi siciliano, un uomo di grande spessore culturale ed umano con la cui famiglia condividevamo ogni anno spensierate stagioni estive.
Mio padre, in verità, tentò di scuotermi dalla mia “loffia” domenicale tradendo un certo desiderio di “fare strada” together, but could not. The later we reached together with the uncles and my mother. My sister Lucy was busy all day to wipe on a university which would support the exam the next day (which he did!) At the home of one of her colleagues, and Fiammetta, as is known, was in Thailand with friends family and would be returned to Italy only three days after the death of his father.
was not the first summer, for reasons of safety, giving up holidays by the sea, there had been more like 85, when after the assassination of Montana and Cassara we had been "deported" Asinara, or that of previous year ', during which my father had been a heavy recipient of death threats by certain Mafia families in Trapani. But that was a summer special, compared to previous my father told us he was no longer in a position to evade security apparatus which, especially the intentional death of Falcone, had undergone, and consequently could not provide us children and to my mother that freedom of movement than in previous years had managed to secure for us.
So that summer the house of his maternal grandparents, where we had elapsed since our birth, perhaps the best moments and carefree, had remained closed. Too "exposed" because of its adjacency to the highway to allow for adequate protection of those who lived. I remember a beautiful day, when I got my father had just walked away with the boat of his friend for what would be the last bath in "his" mare and I can not forget the children of his stock, the same as D ' Amelio, on the beach to follow my father with a look and enjoy that sun and that sea.
Also lunch at home Tricoli was an enjoyable time for all, was a typical lunch in Palermo based panelle, Crocco, oranges and the most heavy Sicilian cuisine can contemplate, in short for strong stomachs. I remember there were pictures on TV of the Tour de France but my father, though a large cycling enthusiast, after dinner, during which he had not saved in the "hold meetings" as usual, decided to nap in a room in our villa. In reality they did not sleep a single minute, we found the ashtray by the bed a pile of cigarette butts that left little to the imagination.
After what was anything but a lunch break my father picked up his effects, including swimsuit (restituitoci still wet after the massacre) of which both red and agenda would be discussed in the following years, and after saluting all walked to his car parked in the yard adjoining the villas along with those of the escort. My mother greeted him at the door of the Villa Tricoli professor, I took her up to carry the bag machine, I knew I had an appointment with my grandmother to take her to the cardiologist so I did not need to ask anything. He smiled at me, smiled, confident that both of them for a few hours we would have ended up at home to Palermo with his uncles.
I realized that my father was gone that afternoon while playing ping pong and I saw her face pass you by Silvia funeral of my cousin, had just learned of the attack on the radio. I do not know why, but before deciding what to do my mother and I are concerned to close the villa. So, as I entrust my mother and my uncles to Tricoli, are got on the motion of a childhood friend and skiing nearby, and at great speed, we went in via D'Amelio.
I saw my father, or rather his "remains" because when I came in via D'Amelio was recognized by the then President of the Court of Appeals, Dr. Carmelo Conti, who wanted to take me to the Centre of Forensic Medicine where I was soon joined by my mother and my paternal grandmother. I learned later that my sister Lucy not only wanted to see what was left of my father, but he also wanted to reconcile and dress in the morgue. My sister Lucy, the same as a few hours after the death of his father would have supported a university exam incredulous leaving the commission, told us that our father is dead, smiling under his mustache, smoked from the soot of the explosion has glimpsed his usual grin, his smile ever, unlike what you may think my sister has taken a great strength from that last image of the father, it is as if they had wanted to greet one last time.
My life, as on the other hand one of my sisters and my mother has certainly changed since that July 19, we all grew up very quickly and we knew, immediately, we had to escape without "ifs" and without "but" to any request we might come from the outside world and the media in particular. We knew that my father would not have liked that we become "surviving family of a victim of the mafia," that we might live as children or wife ... .., we wanted proseguissimo our studies, we realize the work and in life, and we gave those grandchildren who he so wished. I particularly asked me "Pauline", since when I had my first boyfriend, I dare not imagine his joy when he was with us December 20, 2007, when he was born Paolo Borsellino, his first and, for the moment, only grandson male.
Today I say to my father so that our life is changed after he left us but not in the sense that he feared: we were the ones who we were and he knew so well, we walked down our streets without "us off" with our last name became "heavy" in every sense, we have built our families they are facing most of our attention as he taught us, there are "swelled head," Unfortunately the risk when the applicant has the good fortune and honor to have a father like him, in fact we were down to earth. And I would tell him that his mother having been his main support in these years has been our strength, without it everything would be much more difficult and probably none of the three of us going to make it.
I like to think that today are what they are, that a police officer passionate about his work in his small state and serves as their fellow citizens, in a dimension far greater and important, was his father, regardless of the dramatic event I found myself living.
On the other hand is certainly not what I would have never wanted to be after the death of my father, a person who in one way or another had "exploited" this relationship of blood, would "ride" the event and benefits from personal not due, he held positions or positions taken on as a child of .... or because the people called Borsellino. In this regard I am very aware the teaching of my father, for whom nothing was to ask that was not already have or that we could not get through his own forces. My father said that asking for a favor or a recommendation means putting ourselves in a position to have to be liable in respect of those who bestowed the favor or recommendation, then no longer be free but conditional, subject to blackmail, until you return the favor or received the recommendation.
To my children, too young for it to start talking about the grandfather, I would just let him know through his teachings, telling small but significant episodes through which convey the core values \u200b\u200bof his life.
Caro papà, ogni sera prima di addormentarci ti ringraziamo per il dono più grande, il modo in cui ci hai insegnato a vivere.
Manfredi Borsellino
(La testimonianza del figlio del giudice – pubblicata per gentile concessione dell’editore – chiude il libro “Era d’estate”, curato dai giornalisti Roberto Puglisi e Alessandra Turrisi- Pietro Vittorietti editore).
