Following the Italian armistice of the Second World War, the Germans rounded their former allies on the Greek island of Cephalonia and in a mass execution shot thousands of Italian soldiers. Marco was one of them.
For two days, the wounded Marco lay in the monstrous graveyard of fellow men, many of whom took “his” bullets by the unfortunate chance of where they were standing when the killing began.
Eventually this injured soldier was found and survived to live a rich life back in Italy: Marco resumed work as a lumberjack, married his sweetheart Albina, had 7 children (one of which is Ezzio and one of which the current mayor of Albareto), produced dairy on his cow farm, and governed Albareto for 38 years in the post of mayor.
I never asked, but I’d have to guess that of all the work Marco has done, those two days on the ground in Cephalonia were likely his hardest: The work of just being.
Sixty six years later, there is a girl on a farm in Albareto that finds herself facing her hardest work in Italy: The work of just being. In comparison, staying active, productive and busy is easy; staying still, present and conscious is hard. So while Marco may have thought he was “doing nothing” in his two days of lying around just being, he was actually mastering the very thing that defines life. And today he is her great inspiration.
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