Webs.

Webs.
Friendship.
Such an abused, flaunted, desired, often overrated feeling, disappointing but also holding solid truths. 
I often ask myself who are one’s friends. Varied people, all different one from the other, but moved by an only goal: making us feel well. This means making us smile, think or even get angry, but always and only for our happiness.
I consider myself a very lucky person. Friends, true friends, exist for me. They are the same ones I had when I was a child, a teenager, and some new ones appeared along the way.
Relationships born at school, on sports grounds, during trips. In new and different places as well as in everyday life.
Friendships, like love stories, can’t be planned. It’s the beauty of Life, its Essence. You just need to be willing to accept them.
During my trips I filed the other travellers. In boarding gates I divided people into two categories: those I’d have liked to sit near to, and the others. In the first group were cute girls, then young guys and men in general. No, I’m no misogynist, quite the opposite, but since I always asked for an isle seat, women are all about going to the restroom, putting makeup on, brushing teeth, saying hello to their friends two rows behind, “the sandwich, is it whole grain bread?”, going peeing again, “I said I wanted a Diet coke”, buying a little perfume for Mom at duty free… Well, you get it.
The disease has helped, among the disaster and ruin my body is in, to strengthen old friendships gone weak and create new ones, through social networks but not only. I’ve had the pleasure to meet unexpectedly wonderful people, whom I’d have probably never known otherwise.
They opened themselves to me as if I were their most intimate friend, gratifying my ego for this special privilege. From consoling to being consoled, between laughs and unstoppable tears, between old loves and lost jobs, between unexpected common friends and recipes.
It would be too much (at least for now) to thank the Lord for having given me the disease, but I thank Him for having allowed me to meet so many extraordinary people. Aiste most of all.
I’ve stopped asking myself if I would have met them anyway, had I been in good health. I’ll have the answer when I recover: then I’ll meet, one by one, the persons who helped me in such a great way in this difficult feat.
If they accept me, the many nights, days, hours spent chatting, me always fighting with my communicating device and always losing the battle, them trying to make sense of my hieroglyphics, will only have been the building blocks for some wonderful new relationships.
I don’t think I’m wrong in believing they will be true, sincere friendships, because they are born out of a real need for dialogue, support and reassurance, and not out of material elements, often at the base of conventional friendships born in a “physical” way.
Last but not least, I want to address a “break your leg” to a friend who, like me, is fighting for a better life. Go for it, you’ll defeat it like the little mouse. We’ve promised ourselves a big hug and some running along country lanes.
Are we or aren’t we men of our words?
P.S. Acio, for addressing you I borrow Filippo’s words: “I great man has gone”.
I think it’s the most precious and moving sentence ever said to a dad.