Giorgio

Giorgio is a man who works really hard. He has managed, thanks to his will power, to achieve a lot of his dreams: come to France, find a nice woman, get a steady job and a good apartment, own a big TV, drive a big car with GPS, have an i-pod and a good watch, live in a famous town where he has friends and a few relatives. One day he and his girl friend will get married and they might have enough money to have a huge wedding in Romania where his parents are. One day he and his wife-to-be will have a child and he will teach his child the value of life, that if you have dreams you have to work hard to achieve them, but at the same time he will probably treat his child like a prince or a princess. That's how Giorgio has treated my daughter, his niece, when she came to visit them last Summer. That's how Giorgio has treated my man when he met him while he was on his trip in the South last week. That's how Giorgio has always treated me, as a sister even we we were not brother and sister-in-law anymore - at least legally.
Giorgio is a good man. He has a good heart. He leads a good life. He knows where his stars are and knows how to work to get them.
His name will tell you that he is Italian, but I know he is Gypsy. His French will tell you that he went to school to speak such a good French, but I know he did not. His kindness will tell you that he's always had an easy life, but I know he had to struggle more than anyone else. And if you look at Giorgio carefully, you will see that sometimes he frowns, and then maybe, if you look at him carefully, you will see that Giorgio is suffering, but like classy people, he smiles and keeps his sorrow to himself. That's how life goes, he will say... And then he will grab your shoulder with his hand and hold it a second, then shake it as to say: Let's keep moving.


I love Giorgio and I never told him. It took me ten years to realize that he is family. Ten years to finally see a brother in him. And today, as I think about him, I feel proud of him. I wish we were at the terrace of a café cracking jokes together. And maybe at one point in the evening, we would talk about his brother and share our pain of not knowing what's going to happen to him...

Giorgio, working ten hours a day to reach his stars...