Memories

A brief but intense conversation, and I am certain many more would have followed. That is a great sorrow. Roberto, we will meet again to talk of literature and art, in another dimension where only Peace exists. Vivalavida. Siempre.

To the dearly loved friend, to Sho Ken, to his most beautiful and luminous part: the soul. The soul folds and rises again, it breathes in the infinite, from torn threads it weaves itself new and more beautiful, the garment of G-d. (Hermann Hesse)

Dearest Roberto, I am not a believer and I have no certainties about what awaits us after this life. But I deeply hope that, wherever you are now, you can somehow feel all the affection you stirred in those who were lucky enough to meet you. I like to imagine you as a happy, weightless presence, watching over us with tenderness, with your smile and your usual generosity of spirit.

You were my classmate in high school, the clever, sensitive one. You smiled with a certain melancholy. You were always ready to listen, but with a delicate irony. You looked for me when you were in Milan. I was too caught up in the race of life. By chance I read of your passing, I recognised your smile, and I ask your forgiveness for writing only now, forty years later, far from my Milan — but you are in my memories, those of a girl who watched the sea and dreamed of life. Perhaps like you.

Roberto, I can't believe you're gone. I knew you for more than twenty years; your lovely mother was a friend of mine. We spoke often, for work: you were always so anxious about getting tax matters wrong! But I would call you too, to ask which specialist was best for any ailment, and you always knew the right name, the right advice. You took an interest in my son's studies; we talked of travel, of diets, of contemporary American literature. You had an immense culture, vast and deep, and talking with you was always an infinite pleasure. This great soul of yours has not vanished: that, no one can take away — it stays in the people who knew you and understood at once its highest, deepest worth. I love you.

My dear friend, you were so important in my life. You enriched me and made me a better person. I will miss you terribly, but I also know you will always be with me.

Dearest Roberto. Thank you for everything you did for me. Your affection and your encouragement at decisive moments changed the course of my life. You will always have a special place in my heart.

You were my dearest friend, and a piece of my soul has gone with you. Now fly free in the fragrant spaces of eternity.

I will remember Roberto for his deep sensitivity. As a friend he supported me through hard times, with a kindness only a profound person could give. We also had great fun together. For years he was a true friend. I will carry him in my heart forever.

One word to describe him: fabulous. Always and in every way.

Roberto, you were a gentle soul with a subtle wit, who made me laugh and smile during our conversations about healthy eating, Buddhism and the practice of meditation. I will miss your “so easy” macrobiotic recipes, which left me baffled but which you offered with your usual enthusiasm. I will miss the photos of dishes, elegantly arranged and appetising, that you sent me during your trips to New York, Naples and, recently, Copenhagen. I always admired your love of study, even of subjects I find hard, like linguistics, for which you recently earned a Master’s with top marks. I will miss your gentle teasing of my chaotic family life, your reminding me that everything flows and that fretting is in vain. Thank you, Roberto, for these moments, which I will carry with me always. “Those we love and have lost are no longer where they were, but are everywhere we are” (Saint Augustine).

Hello Roberto, beautiful and generous soul. I found you again after many years, an extraordinary surprise. I will remember your wise advice for a healthy breakfast! Safe travels.

An extraordinary and generous colleague, a beautiful soul. That is how I will remember you, thinking back on the many exchanges we had over the years. I will miss you.

You understood Naples when no one else did. You loved literature beyond measure. You told me to read Patroni Griffi’s “Scende giù per Toledo”; I will do it now, and it will feel like talking with you again. Death is an interrupted dialogue. When I caught Covid you dictated me such careful instructions, because you cared for others with a deep delicacy. Not everyone knows how to cross life with such elegance and seemingly absent-minded lightness. You loved our profession as it should be loved, with full respect for those who made its history, so often unknown to most. Only now do I realise how loved you were.

Roberto was a unique, special person. Starting from his human warmth, the deep respect and the kindness with which he approached people. His is an inconsolable loss for all who knew him. What remains is the regret for all the time left to live, all the things still to say and do together. Today Roberto is gone, and leaves in our hearts an immense gratitude for the good fortune of having met him. He was intelligent, funny, empirical, volcanic in the way he embraced his passions and shared them with others. A hymn to life.

I will keep the memory of your gentle smile and of the literary and theatrical passions you shared with such enthusiasm. Safe travels.

Dear Roberto, I remember perfectly the day we met — also because you told me about it yourself. You had come to talk about your thesis on Fernanda Pivano. I was there with your supervisor, a scatty young assistant, with a black Saks Fifth Avenue plastic shopper that had everything in it. From that moment you became a friend. A sun, for your enthusiasm, for your light. Remember that we must go to New York together. I can’t wait.

We met only once in person, as part of a team of interpreters of various languages at an important event in Milan. I was struck at once by your professionalism, kindness and wit. You convinced me to apply to AIIC, and in the months that followed you supported me constantly, giving me precise information and precious contacts. A genuine proselytism, proof of the passion you had for our profession and of your curiosity about less widely spoken languages (in my case, Slovenian). I will be forever grateful to the universe for the chance to have known you.

Dear Roberto, just a few jobs shared together were enough to see your beautiful soul, made of immense kindness and deep humanity. As a young colleague it was wonderful to breathe in the joy you felt for this work and the passion you had for knowledge, in its truest, deepest sense. I will hold dear the memory of your smile, inside and outside the booth!

Roberto, exquisitely sensitive, a good soul, always ready to help others… he helped me when I tragically lost my dearest friend. Now I mourn his absence, knowing that in our memory he will remain present forever.

Roberto, gentle soul, you always sought lightness, the kind that is born of simple, true things. I like to think that life and death are only passages of the same journey, and that nothing of what you gave to me, to all your friends, and even to the people you met, perhaps without knowing them, is lost. You live now in all our hearts.

Roberto, dear, I still can’t believe it. I am shaken, dismayed at the thought of your absence. I remember that distant 1993, when we met outside Professor Meli’s office, to ask him for a thesis in Anglo-American literature. Then my specialisation in London, my return to Italy and your essential help and support — you who had a few more years and a little more experience. In an often competitive profession, you were quite simply the first to believe in that young interpreter, to promote me, to introduce me to clients and colleagues you already knew. You. No one else, YOU. Then the accordion of life pulled us apart and back together many times: geography, personal ups and downs, family matters, constant work travel made our contact more remote, but always deep, never trivial. Later came your entry into AIIC, the activism, the discussions about the good and the bad of the association we both care for so much. That thread, born in a university corridor, was never broken — right down to the voice notes we exchanged, you from Milan, me in the middle of a forest in Canada, because it was urgent to act on that episode that had so rightly outraged you. And then today. Roberto, I want to remember you as I knew you: full of enthusiasm for life, for work, for study. A good and generous person who will be missed by everyone. I love you. May justice be done, and may the earth be light upon you, my friend.

Our friendship was born at our first meeting, nourished by shared passions: interpreting, D. Seleskovitch — of whom he was a great admirer and to whose association he belonged — and, of course, New York. Roberto adored the Lower East Side. Whenever one of us went to NY, we would send the other photos and videos of buildings, bars, little restaurants, street art: that is how we travelled together from afar. I always admired (and often envied) his ability never to lose his calm. That is why we had wonderful conversations about Buddhism and meditation. When he learned that my daughter wished to come closer to it in a difficult moment, he immediately offered to help her. That was him: turned towards others, always. He never stopped studying, especially American literature. He had a flawless voice, yet he still wanted to take diction lessons on Broadway! So many times he wanted me to try macrobiotic cooking — and how we laughed at my doubts. But our trade often left us only the time to see each other “out and about”. What remains, though, are the drives back from conferences outside Milan: once we had arrived, we would still sit talking for hours. In recent years he went through very hard times. He did not want help, only listening — what he knew how to offer better than anyone. I will miss him for all this, but above all for all the subjects we never got to, and for which we could have stayed for hours in the car, in front of a doorway.

I met Roberto only a few months ago, sadly: a dear friend and colleague introduced us, as she lived in an area of Milan where my daughter had just bought a flat. I had known that area well in the ’80s, and my memories of it were not good. Roberto was full of enthusiasm for his neighbourhood, and over that unforgettable evening together he made me rediscover NOLO, its hidden, original, surprising corners. He told me stories, explained its customs, and truly made me want to know the place better. A person who, with refined simplicity and rare kindness, makes you dream. We had promised each other that, when I came back to Milan, we would continue the discovery together; in the meantime, knowing I loved flowers, a few weeks ago he sent me a photo of the wisteria in bloom in his courtyard. Thank you with all my heart, Roberto, and safe travels. Rest in peace.

Roberto, the moment I heard the painful news, a memory rose before my eyes: the time, exactly thirty years ago, when you passed me your notebook from the Anglo-American Literature course you so loved. A generous, enthusiastic gesture. It was a very hard time for me, and I was grateful to you. I am happy to have known you, and sad to realise you are no longer here with us. Yet you will keep teaching us so much. Goodbye, dear Roberto, safe travels.

I met Roberto only a few times in person, more often online, in RSI and in training, but I sensed a good, generous, cultured and caring person. As a former student of the ESIT in Paris, I shared with Roberto a passion for Danica Seleskovitch and a respect for the rigour that the first generation of interpreters — the one of the Nuremberg trials — represented. We have lost a pearl, as a colleague wrote. We will not forget you.

We met in Milan in 2020, a month before the pandemic broke out: those three days with the IULM students made a friendship blossom, one that grew firm in the months that followed, with constant exchanges of messages between Washington and Milan. We did not even notice that our “captivity” had opened our hearts, as if we had always known each other. The solemn promise, not yet kept, was to meet in Naples, loved by us both. When the pandemic ended, mutual setbacks of health did not allow it, but at the end of this January we had made a precise plan. I will go, Roberto, to our meeting. I love you.

I knew Roberto for only a few years, too few — I never imagined they would be so few; ours was a friendship meant to go on. What struck me at once was his boundless love for our profession, which he defended fiercely against its many declines. And then I discovered the wonderful person he was, always there for a piece of advice, from insurance to restaurants by way of the gelaterie. He was cultured without showing off, deep without boasting, kind and affectionate. I felt an instinctive liking and affection for him at once. I knew he was there: a message, and at once a reply, a joke, a voice note. I bitterly regret that we did not see each other more. I treasure the memory of our last meeting, in Milan, with Cristina, with him guiding us around NOLO, the neighbourhood he was in love with. I will also remember his last message, a day before the tragedy: he was well, he was happy! Dear Roberto, may your new journey be light.

My memory of Roberto is tied to his active presence in AIIC. I never sensed any craving for the limelight, only a real, genuine desire to do. He always gave me the impression of walking with a light step, almost so as not to disturb. Yet it was impossible not to notice his kindness, his grace and his smile, which he gave generously, as if it were a gift he had received and sincerely wished to pass on. Rare, in this world!

A gentle presence, an understanding, an ethic, an immediate closeness, tact, generosity, discretion, love, inquiry, dedication, an elegance of the soul. A rare flower, a point of reference, an authority, an open window, a lit fireplace, a music both soothing and stirring at once: you were, you are and you will be. May my affection accompany your journey, and the future journeys of your beautiful soul, Roberto.

Phenomenal Roberto. His shirts buttoned to the very top, a composed smile at a flash of thought. One day elegant as a sword, the next out on the metro in friar’s slippers. So many selves in such a slender body that you’d lose count — yet all of them selves that Roberto carried in his arms without calculation, without ever holding back. A swot, spiritual, witty, anxious, brave, and always, anyway, generous. Always Roberto. I like to think otherwise: that he has left us until further notice and is enjoying one of those moments that only pay off if you can grasp the finest grain of life, as he knew how to do. Roberto, sitting in a Manhattan café, doing an endless crossword in the New Yorker. The rest is just background noise.

Dear Roberto, we met a few years ago. Everything you said resonated perfectly within me. You offered me words of great comfort in a delicate moment, anticipating my every request. I was astonished by your ability to grasp feelings in an instant. A consummate professional — but it is not the technique we will miss, rather the soul. I will go to Naples, where you said you wanted to live one day, and take a walk for you.

I remember you, Roberto, a gentle soul.

A mentor, a colleague, a friend. What emptiness you have left, Roberto. The path we began together I will continue on my own, always with you in my heart, hoping to make you proud. In Parliament, I will switch on that microphone for the first time for you. Safe travels.

Roberto, I feel a great emptiness, a hole. I will miss everything: our talks, your curiosity, all the things you knew, your friendship. Rest in peace.

I remember you light and deep, with your beautiful smile. Who knows how much more you carried inside that I never managed to see. Safe travels.

Your smile and your light will stay with me, beyond time. I kept this calligraphy you sent me in my dark moment, with the grace that was so much you. Here it is now, for you. For us. “When conditions are sufficient, a cloud transforms into rain, snow, or hail. The cloud has never been born and it will never die. This insight of signlessness and interbeing helps us recognize that all lives continue in different forms. Nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, everything is in transformation.” — Thich Nhat Hanh Nothing is lost, everything is transformed. Safe travels, Rob.

I will always remember his smiling eyes, the smile on his lips and the gentleness of his gaze. His memory will stay alive in my heart and in my thoughts.

You used to tell me: “Enjoy life. Sooner or later it ends, so you may as well rejoice.” Life as a shot of champagne, that was your philosophy, and you prescribed it to everyone with the straight face of someone who knows he is right. You too “will always stay in my heart”, your younger brother. Roberto was one of the few who always knew how to interpret my autism. Literally, a great interpreter. I was never able to say or write anything decent for him, to express my affection... just a few, simple words. But I am sure he appreciates my very autistic way of remembering him, reconstructing twenty years of his life through my Gmail archive. I can already picture his comeback. I think of the places we crossed together, Paris, Rome, Naples, and New York, where you often came to visit me. The passion we shared for Berlin, when it was still a city where the unique was unrepeatable. And then Torre del Lago, and Milan, of course, even if only briefly. The Christmas parcel you would send me in Montréal, your gifts, the affection you gave me. No, you did not deserve to end like this. But what remains is the way you crossed that moment, without fear, faithful to the Buddhist teachings. «The person you love has become a part of you, of the air you breathe, of the earth you walk on, of the flowers that bloom. Death cannot destroy this continuity. Do not look for the one who is gone in the past or the future; look within and around you, in the present moment. It is there that you will find their presence and their light, unchanged.» — Thich Nhat Hanh For twenty-five years we walked together. Now I keep you alive in the simplest way I know, by living a little the way you did. I carry your things with me, the curiosity, the jokes, the taste for enjoying life before it ends. I don’t always manage it. But I try.

Roberto was not only the flawless voice able to join different worlds in the booth; he was a sensitive soul, in search of harmony and lightness. His voice will keep echoing among us, in the places he loved and in the hearts of those who will never stop loving him. Safe journey, Roberto.

From Sky TG24 · In memory of Roberto Guerrino