I am an Alpine, I returned home, I managed to get home, after the days at the front on the Don. We then learned that we "had to" stay in line because other departments were retreating and we had to ensure coverage of that maneuver.
Then the order, the retreat, the longest days, interminable and still, even now, I do not realize, after the exit from the bag, that last period spent waiting to be loaded on the translated.
Those turbulent days had been exhausting for the accumulated fatigue, for the pain of being alone, without the many companions left in the snow. Now, on the train that brought us home, we were in a few, still whole, and with us the wounded of the last battle.
And now I'm here, I'm back in the family.
I do not yet realize, today, all that happening events, and yet months have passed since my return. The only thing that I feel and of which I am sure is that only thanks to my family I managed to defeat the worst enemy, the invisible one, that war that had remained inside me.
They did not leave me alone; surrounded me with affection, more or less obvious, shaken me with strong words, perhaps sometimes offensive to make me react when the pain and loneliness that pushed me from within seemed to prevail over life, the desire to live.
It is not a question of intelligence, culture or even better, of the culture of love. I realized how hard my family, my wife and even my little son, born when I was at the front, were, seeing me often absorbed in my silence . In those moments I felt alone even when I was among many people who loved me. I felt lonely and no one could help me, I set myself, if I could, that I, just me, could overcome those difficult situations that every day, new ones, appeared to me as nightmares, of that war that had slipped into my veins, it flowed in my blood polluted by that suffering.
I remembered that I was not alone at the front. There were the comrades, there were the other Alpines of my platoon; we were more than a team, a solid and strong group of friends, I would say brothers.
Then, after the tragedy, all of us survivors thought we had won at least on that fate that we wanted to see only march and die. Instead another long, hard battle would begin.
The loneliness that assailed me in the first days of my return now, in a few days, became less heavy, affecting my mood less. Loneliness is the evil that assails you when memories, the suffering of those memories assaults you, with violence, and you cannot reject it, you are not able to drive away those images, those complaints, those rattles. Then you feel yourself overwhelmed, you seem to drown in that liquid world that is life. I realized that, by myself, I couldn't have done it. When I was alone at home, when I was alone on the farmyard and I saw life around me, when I was walking in the woods, when I went to make wood, here I saw my inability to stop that new war which unfortunately was painfully renewed within myself.
I escaped from the room and made me welcome from the large kitchen; I left the farmyard and took refuge in the shade of the forest, as if in that sweet shade I could find my loved ones, the old mother who had changed deeply after my father's death, I saw the loving hand of my wife, the smile happy with my baby, who every day grew bigger and stronger.
My wife also reproached me, very gently, seeing my evil: "Excuse me, but what do you ask for life? You should be happy to be here with me, with our baby, with your mom. To be happy you need to want it. We must drive away the many bad things you have lived and see above all the good that is around you ".
Already easy to say, but she was right, she was close to me, she took care of me, she tried with a discrete caress to make me feel that the world was that of our family, not that of the trench and the long days of retreat.
It was not always like that, I spent moments of discouragement at moments of reflection on what I had experienced. One thing I remembered, obsessive, of those winter months spent in the trenches and, then, still during the march of the retreat: the lack of shadows.
In the days of both autumn and winter, in Russia, there were no shadows. There was an annoying diffuse light, as there was no difference between heaven and earth. It almost seemed that we were part of the landscape, especially in the last few days, when we were caked with snow just like the few twigs of the bushes that had lost all the characteristics of a vegetable, they seemed dead and ourselves perhaps, if someone had seen us walk in those conditions we could have considered dead people walking. In fact there were not even the shadows that testified that we were materially alive. No, we didn't leave shadows.
Here, back in the warmth of family love, I realize that by day, when I move, there is always my shadow with me. So here I am thinking, to understand how beautiful and useful that silent presence is. Shadow makes me feel alive. I'm there! That silhouette that light projects on the floor, on the pavement, is me!
Shadow ... above all, I found my life in the shadow of my family. My family is my true welcoming shadow.
I went to a wheat field. The sun is hidden behind a cloud of a curious shape, which reminds me of the stories of my grandparents, when I was a child. The sun is hidden but its rays pierce the cloud like lines drawn in the air, just like in church, when a ray enters from a small side window and cuts the darkness of the aisles dry. Still fixed the changeable shape of the cloud hanging up there, which seems motionless but, in reality, it sails slowly in the wind. Those rays draw my shadow on the ground and then I would like to scream, but I don't, otherwise someone might take me for a fool. But I'm just happy to be alive! My wife comes towards me, holding our baby by the hand.
Here is my happiness, my family. I cling to them. Let's sketch a run holding hands. Here, something I had not yet done. Running and then stopping, looking at the fields and, above all, squeezing my woman and our little man who had been raised during a license I had obtained, and had made me forget, for a few days, the stupid, continuous, slaughter of war.
Now I was back, I felt reborn every day more and when I came out of the labyrinth I was forced to enter, I realized that thanks to my family's love, I had saved myself. Now I had new legs to run, I had new eyes to smile, I had new hands to embrace.
The shadow that witnessed that life followed us, showed us that we were united, that we were alive the three of us.
I found my voice again. I could go to church to thank God for giving me my family, for giving me a new life through and with them.
For years I hesitated, avoided telling this story of mine, only mine.
How I could live in torment, in remorse of what I had done and what I had not done, of what I had suffered.
From the day of my return all things, in their own measure, regained value, beginning with the little things and this recovery had taken place thanks to my family. I returned with the thought to the first days. I remembered my mother's discouragement, immediately after my return, her shaking her head, seeing me thoughtfully and without light in her eyes. Now I see that she too enjoys my new life.
But I have to repeat and I will do so as long as I have a voice, that if I am reborn, I owe it to my family, my wife, my son and my mother.
I took my son on his knees and told him: "Do you know that when you were born, I was at war?" And then, after a brief silence, I resumed: "War is a terrible thing where one kills or is killed without knowing why. "I don't know why I said those words. My son looked at me as if he didn't understand, and my wife added that she would rather say those things when she was older. He could not understand what war was, suffering, especially that of his dad.
At that moment I thought that, in reality, she herself knew very little of that evil. My son, in fact, had not reacted to my question in any way. Surely he had felt disturbed, even without understanding. Suddenly he embraced me and I felt the sweet weight of his head on my heart. His head, reclined on my chest, gave me the security that I had missed for all the months at the front, where death was present every hour, every day.
Here is the life that resumed more and more in me, thanks to him.
