A few words from Enzo Ferrari and Giorgio Armani that comfort me when I feel like I'm facing life all on my own. I tear up a bit every time I read them.
In his book "Per Amore", Giorgio writes:
Then the war came, the real one, that changed our lives. Cellars became our shelters. During the war, it was my mother who made sure we had food beyond what our ration cards allowed us to get.
(To give you some context, When Giorgio Armani was born, Italy was under Benito Mussolini's fascist regime. At age 6, he found himself living through World War II. He experienced the war for about 5 years, until he was 10 years old.)
The bread was a hard, tasteless tube with no smell, filled with a sticky inside that's hard to describe. In the evening we only ate coffee with milk. Meat? Forget about it. Chicken occasionally, but only thanks to family friends who lived in the countryside and were generous with us.
My mother often pretended to be pregnant, hiding things under the wide skirts women wore back then. This way, when German patrols were searching the countryside, they wouldn't stop her from gathering a few eggs, a chicken, or a couple loaves of bread.
My father was hired at a fascist party office as an administrative employee. I felt he was a bit distant, too distracted for me to share my doubts with him. He died too soon. I was 25 years old and felt I had never really known him. I realized I had to face life on my own.
Enzo Ferrari, in his book “My Terrible Joys,” writes:
My military service left me with at least one thing, a letter of recommendation from my colonel, so I could apply to Fiat.
I was full of hope when I walked into Engineer Diego Soria's office on Corso Dante, It was a disaster: Fiat, Soria told me politely, wasn't big enough yet to hire all the soldiers returning from the war.
It was the winter of 1918-19, bitterly cold, I remember it with deep sadness. I found myself on the street, my clothes freezing on my body. Walking through Valentino Park, after brushing the snow away with my hand, I dropped onto a bench. I was alone; my father and my brother were gone. Despair overwhelmed me, and I cried.
I'm not sure why these words bring tears to my eyes. It gives me comfort knowing that they, too, felt all alone once in their lives, and yet they went on to build amazing things. If they can do it, I can too.
Thanks for reading
Marco