Aldo Cazzullo (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
IS it was a long love story, the one between Alcide De Gasperi and his daughter Maria Romana, which is gone on the threshold of one hundred years. She had been a wife and mother, she had had a life full of love, but when she spoke of her father her face was transfigured, her eyes lit up, her voice softened.
She was very proud of him, and she felt it was her duty to protect himto make a difficult life less harsh for him: the fascist prisons, the obscure work in the Vatican, the clandestinity, the power achieved in dramatic years, the great victory in the electoral campaign against the Communists in 1948, and the double duel that he had had to endure until his death, against Togliatti and against internal opponents, both on the left – Dossetti, Fanfani himself – and above all on the right, who supported the Pope to shift the axis of Christian Democracy in a conservative sense.
But more than politics, Maria Romana was struck by the love for her father and the care for his memory. She had had three children, and two of her had died before her: Giorgio in a motorcycle accident, Maurizio from an illness contracted in Africa, where he redeemed child soldiers.
«I hope to find them in Heaven, she told me the last time I interviewed her – but who knows if I deserved it. Dad certainly did: like Saint Paul, he fought the good fight, he kept the faith. And even when he was in prison it was always he who gave us courage. He wrote: “My dear ones, sleep in peace. I am present””.
Here: be present. Be there. Being heard, even in absence. De Gasperi with his family had succeeded, he had given his daughters a good education, which had been preserved over time. Maybe each of us could be loved and remembered by our daughters as he was loved and remembered.
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