Grandpa Gheorghe died on an October morning at home with my mother and aunt next to him. The day before he had called me and gave me the notebook and the telescope. “Don’t think that people are disappearing completely just because you can’t see them anymore,” he told me. I asked him. – And about people.
Years later I understood something else about that night. My mother was right to be careful. When a child says an adult has asked him to come next to the night and keep it a secret, the parent must take things seriously, not assume that the intention is innocent. But Grandpa had also had a reason that I, at nine, could not understand: he knew that his time was over and he wanted to leave me one last beautiful memory.
And he left it to me. That telescope is still near my window. And when my daughter turned nine, I took out two mattresses on the terrace and showed her great-grandfather’s notebook. I looked together at the sky until late, and when a shooting star crossed the darkness, I remembered Gheorghe’s voice: “Some things should not be hidden. But some memories are worth keeping all your life.”
