I WILL NEVER FORGET that September of 1986… Every time I looked at her, I saw the baby started showing. I felt warm. I felt I had to protect her.
I was in Italy at the time. I got my Science of Computer degree in 1988, late, when I was already working in the field. I was a software engineer then, I was used to write computer programs. I was used to study and work at the same time, with a wife and a baby on the way… what a struggle!
Yeah, we really struggled then…. beginnings are difficult for everyone.
We lived in a small cottage in the country at the time. It was an isolated house on a little hill, maybe 500 yards from the sea. The rent was so cheap. It was a peaceful place to live. It had to be quiet. It could not be otherwise, she was expecting a baby, and I was used to travel all the time for work. I couldn’t leave her alone at home. I just wanted her to be safe. I remember her family members visited her often. So I could focus on my job.
She was a brave, principled woman, who accompanied me for many years on my journey towards achieving my goal. We’ve been through many things together. She was a building block of my achievement. She was always there for me.
There was a light breeze that late September afternoon, long time ago. We were at the beach. There were no persons in the vicinity. She said: “I strongly believe in you. I don’t need to ask myself all the time: who’s really this man next to me? I know you; you don’t hide your personality. You’re authentic, and I am quite convinced that at some point, sooner or later, you’re gonna make it through, because you’re very strong, and I love you. That’s why I married you. I want you to know that. It doesn’t matter if we have an old used car now or have to buy cheap food, ’cause we have to run the numbers every blessed month. I’ll back you all the way” And so did she.
I felt a sudden desire to hold her tight, but I couldn’t…. That day, we hugged very gently, we rejoiced, we cried…
That baby now, 28 years later, is a professional who worked in many places, he is a creative man of many interests, and…he always stands up for the right thing… A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since that day… That day I made her a promise, and it was not foolish … because I was able to keep it, and so did she, even if many years later our lives went off in separate directions.
What I wrote, I didn’t particularly write it for me or my kid. I wrote it because I wanted to stress the importance of Women. Let’s face it, today we men, do not recognize them anymore, in a way. They seem to have changed somehow… but maybe we are the ones who can’t feel the winds of change in our society.
Maybe many of us should start consider women also from a human point of view, not just for their gender. Maybe we should start realizing that women, behind their glamour, live the same challenges of ours, the same sort of frustration, they have feelings, ambitions, dreams, concerns, and in addition to that, women give birth to us, but often times they are the ones who don’t get their due, and experience the biggest risk of exclusion. They have their own way to react to life. We men have ours.
We, women and men, are both confused in front of a complex, rapidly changing and uncertain landscape. We lost our human dimension. Our basic values of life. We live paralyzed by the fear of one another, by the lack of mutual trust. That’s all. Perhaps that is the reason why we lost our taste for loving and sticking together. This kind of society made us lose the joy of being together. The word is Human. Round and round we go, right? But the word is always the same: we need to be HUMAN BEINGS, because that is what we are. Taking due account of the human dimension should be a priority for all of us. We are humans, and I never forget that. Otherwise what are we left with?
