I am going to write this letter to my relatives and already I realize that I am feeling, also on this occasion, Her lack.
To Her I have often asked (and She was friendly involved) to do the review of my texts written in English: letters to colleagues and patients, scientific publications and especially the material for this site, created to remember my grandfather Giovanni, to be shared with the brothers, cousins and nephews who live in Italy and in the USA, and now extended to that and other possible future contributions of anyone who wants to be hosted here.
Deborah was not only a friendly and attentive auditor drafts, indulgent towards my English at best “scholastic”, but above all an affectionate cousin, a dear friend and even more a wonderful person.
One of my regrets is that I have known Her personally only on 2007, when She was a guest of my family here in Sardinia with Joanne and Buddy, and that we was in contact almost exclusively for e-mail because of my limited ability to communicate verbally in English; however, I am proud to have known Her enough to appreciate Her uncommon qualities expressed in everyday and professional life as health care provider, as am I, engaged in assisting sick people with a dedication, which emerges from Her letters, that make proud all the health category.
Some people might be upset at the thought of Her sentimental life: you must calm down. For Her the past, and even painful, misunderstandings have been a stimulus to build a family, which adored Her, I’ve had numerous attempts of it, composed of loyal patients, colleagues, relatives of every grade that She had also just met briefly, without forgetting brotherly friends She talked about (I can tell She wrote about) with tender affection which, I am sure, was totally reciprocated.
I am writing this letter in English for all relatives USA; I do not think, although I hope, I will be able to make, as I will try to do with these few lines in Italian, the nuances of my feelings; I ask you to be, as Deborah was, equally indulgent. The following link will allow you, if you will, to see a video. I asked my son Andrea (who was, also him as well as his brother Alberto, very fond of Deb, as she wanted I called her), in a hot afternoon at the end of the past July, to help me for assemble some images, taken from the digitization of old “Superotto films” shot by my father, my uncle Ennio and my brother Giacomo in Morcone in the sixties. For me, and I think also for those who are now more or less sexagenarians, those scenes have a special poem. On this occasion I have decided to use some of it with courage, at the limit of recklessness, mixed with something similar to cowardice.
Debra, as the closest relatives called Her, often affirmed with conviction that She “had” to heal because She “had” to see beautiful places that had not yet been, but above all She “had” to return to Morcone, the birthplace of Her beloved grandfather Dominic. She said She could not wait to look out to the terrace of the bedroom that Uncle Mimi had reserved to Her several times, which dominates the upper valley of the Tammaro river with a breathtaking view, Deb’s passion but not only of Her. From what was emerging from the news received by me, in Orlando in June, directly from Her and from Her doctors, and later from Her e-mail, I felt unable to deal with the high-risk (here is the cowardice) that Deb could not fulfill Her desire and I decided to send to Her a video of Morcone.
Deborah was able to see it on Her iPad that She had next to Her continually in these very hard months and with whom She was in constant contact with the world and towards which She sent messages of hope and optimism showing a strength of mind and a desire of life that I wish every human will be able to express at least once in his life.
The video is dedicated to Deb; I will make for sure other versions of it, but the first is this: despite the doubts to procure some strong emotions too (here is the courage), I am comforted by Her immediate positive comments.
I do not think that it was necessary to feed Her memory. I read that St. Augustine said that inside our heads we keep a treasure: our memories. I have not had time to read the original source, but I like the concept and I consider the Deb’s memory a pearl to add to others our precious memories.
You will be always in our minds and in our hearts; those who have had the honor to hug You, they will have You in their skin; those who have seen Your tender smile and Your contagious laugh, they will have You in their eyes; those who have heard Your musical voice or learned from Your mother’s reproaches (like me who You reproved about the verbosity and the insistence a bit boring when I proposed creams and creams dealing to me, at least once, the epithet “strunzo” at the manner of Mimi!!!) they will always have You in their ears.
Hello Cousin
Or how You used to say in Your not too accurate Italian
“Te amo”
Pietro Iannelli