Burcei. Certain events can only happen in a small community, in a country where everyone knows each other, respects each other, helps each other as in a big family.

This is the story of a woman, Maria Muccelli, known to everyone as Aunt Marietta, born in 1925, who died in 2015 at the age of 90. She left with a worry in her heart: not having seen a son again, her firstborn, whom she had given to the midwife immediately after giving birth in the mountains of Burcei on 21 October 1951. And it is also the story of a man of 70 years old, Harold Gregory Timothy Smith, for all Gerry, who ten days ago returned to Burcei from the United States, Galley, New Mexico, with few documents and one hope: to personally deliver a letter to that mother he had never met and that he hoped he could embrace.

The return

Eventually Gerry read that letter, in tears, to the four brothers Isidoro, Luigia, Graziella and Paolo Malloru, all younger than him, born from Marietta's subsequent marriage. The family, a wonderful family, reunited thanks to the help and sensitivity of the mayor Simone Monni and the clerk of the registry office Rita Zuncheddu, who when she saw the seventy-year-old American arrive in the Town Hall to ask for the birth certificate, I immediately understood from a certain family air that whoever was in front of him was that child born many years earlier in Burcei and disappeared into thin air, because in the village many knew about that story. So he looked up at the sky and thought: "Zia Mariedda, t'appu torrau a fillu tuu."

The mother

Gerry's brothers, gathered in Marietta's house, in via delle Ciliegie, tell what seems like a fairy tale. “We knew that our mother at the age of 26, before getting married, had had a son. But he had only talked about it with some of us, especially with Fiorangela, our older sister, who died several years ago. She confided in her, told her of her great pain: “I was too poor”, she told her, “I was not married, I thought about the good of the baby and I entrusted him to the midwife immediately after giving him birth. A few weeks later I regretted it, I went to look for him in Cagliari, at the orphanage. They told me it was gone. I never stopped thinking about it, I worried about him as only a mother can do it. Where will it be? Will he be as well as my other children are? ”.

Childbirth

To better understand this story it is necessary to photograph the situation. Luigia Malloru helps us: "Fifties, post-war, Maria, our mother, belonged to a very poor family: she never went to school, she helped around the house by going to the mountains to look after the cattle, to collect wood, fagots, look for fruit of the forest. The mountain was his second home. For this, they told us, to give birth to that child, our eldest brother, he took refuge in the mountains ».

In the orphanage

The midwife then registered the baby in Burcei's registry office, as shown in the documents, with the most obvious invented name: Silvestro Silvestri. That child, together with his peers whom many called children of shame , lived in the orphanage in Piazza Galilei in Cagliari, with the nuns, until he was 4 years old. Then he was adopted at a distance by an American family: the nuns accompanied him with a beautiful dress and a document, the passport issued for this trip by the Ministry of the Interior, which Gerry still carries with him today. The sisters of charity also put another sheet in the pockets of that child: an act of baptism, celebrated "in the church of San Giacomo in Burcei" ».

The clue and the search

«In our opinion - continue Isidoro, Luigia, Graziella and Paolo Malloru - it was a clue so that that child, when he grew up, could find his family of origin. Because in Burcei there is no church of San Giacomo, which is instead located in Cagliari right next to the orphanage ».

San Giacomo, Villanova area: curiously where Gerry and his wife Tanny stayed in a Bed and Breakfast the evening before arriving in Burcei, another sign of destiny.

In town

The small group of "foreigners", Gerry, his wife and interpreter, did not go unnoticed in Burcei. Before arriving at the Town Hall, on the morning of October 20, someone spotted them and recognized him: this is Aunt Marietta's son . «He has the same look as our brother Isidoro», smiles Luigia, still moved.

"It was a delicate situation - explains Rita Zuncheddu from the Town Hall - beyond the bureaucratic affair, there was the human aspect, the respect for the history of a beautiful family, of Aunt Marietta to whom we all loved, the will not to violate confidentiality and try to help people ». At that juncture, the mayor Simone Monni moved as if he were the head of an extended family. And the most difficult phone call started from the Town Hall: "Do you want to meet your brother you've never met?"

The meeting

The answer was not obvious, Gerry later confided: his adoptive stepbrother had been rejected years earlier by his natural family. Not him, he was welcomed with love the next day, October 21st: on his birthday, for Gerry it was the best gift possible. He said it himself, in English, because he forgot the Italian he learned at the orphanage.

Affection

It is right that what was said between brothers remains a private matter. There was a life to tell, especially the memory of a single, affectionate mother who was widowed at the age of 49. With Isidoro, Luigia, Graziella and Paolo Malloru there were also his wives, children and grandchildren because they all wanted to hug their relative who came from America.

«We wanted to meet him in the house where mum lived until the end, with his smile and blue eyes. He had regained his serenity only when he learned that about fifteen years ago an American woman, Gerry's adoptive mother, came to Burcei to know the place where her son was born. The two women, the two mothers, did not meet, for some reason. But Mrs. Smith said that Silvestro Silvestri had become Harold Gregory Timothy known as Gerry, an accomplished psychologist, who had married without having children. A peaceful and happy life, during which he had never forgotten that mother of Burcei ». Because certain loves do not end, least of all those between a mother and a child even if they have only seen each other for a few minutes.

«Our mother - continue in their story Isidoro, Luigia, Graziella and Paolo Malloru - has always been marked by the fact of having abandoned the firstborn and with us she was very severe. He always said: remember that certain mistakes are paid for throughout life ».

The letter

Gerry then left for America with a heart full of love for his family and his native country and now that he is retired he is thinking of moving to Burcei to be close to his loved ones. “In America she has no one left: her adoptive parents are dead. We are left with us ».

Before leaving, Gerry promised that he would return to Burcei in the spring and read to his brothers the letter he wanted to give to his mother Maria: «Dear mother, I forgive you for what you did for making the difficult decision to give me away. The couple who chose to adopt me when I was four lived in the United States and provided for me, gave me a wonderful life and a great education and a truly lovely family. I wish you, mother, all the best and may God bless you and your family ».

Paolo Carta

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