It's been many years since then. I have no idea if there's something special about me and why I value each of the people who have passed through my life so much. There are extremely few of them, those of whom I have no clear memories. But I can still draw them, even if they have no color, scent or emotion. And I could still give a title to the image of them. I happen to relive fragments of life, as if it were yesterday. Just like that, suddenly. When a thought, the image of someone from the past, happens to hit me with force, I know for sure that I will soon find out something about that person. Something, anything. I wait. I wait insistently. And when nothing happens, I understand. People who were once and who played a role, however tiny, in our lives, especially when they are no longer there, need to be there a little longer. Their soul floats hai hui and wants to know that somewhere, someone, can still tell about the times when they were on earth. Today I found some wool socks, from a long time ago. That's how the memory began. On my way to the cemetery on the hill, before turning left, I often stopped at Cicuta's, who lived in the penultimate house on the right (at the time). A small, incredibly clean house. Cicuta was blonde, decent and a little older than me. I haven't spoken to her in over thirty years. I know it's good, otherwise I would find out from my mother. I remember as if it were yesterday, the face of her mother, always sitting in a certain position, on a small bed. Cicuta's mother was paralyzed. I don't know why, but I know that she was incredibly gentle and had an unchanging smile. There was nothing sickly in her room and, somehow, I couldn't even imagine that it could have been otherwise. That was her. She always had socks knitted with 4 small andreles, from scraps of coarse wool, in mixed colors. The room in which she was destined to spend each day was probably cool, for what other reason would you wear winter socks in the summer? And every day was the same, boring. Except for the ones when I would come to visit, on my way to the cemetery and I would perch on a high chair, swinging my legs with bruised knees and gazing at the stars and the moon. I remember her smiling warmly and laughing out loud. The village stories probably had no other way of reaching her. And I knew them all, with details that you couldn't even think of, if you were taller than one meter and without a crazy passion for them. I always had this ability, to see beyond the big picture. And my older hosts in the village, "ladies" or "aunts" couldn't wait for me to be their guest. Phew, let alone me! If I think about it more, I think I visited Cicuta's mother even when no one else was home. I would enter the yard and go to the back room. I would just call her, so that she would know it was me. That's right, who would think that I experienced the naturalness of such events? I always found her in almost the same position. And she always seemed happy. And the last image of her is with her blond hair tied back and without a headscarf on her head. Before I left, she stretched out with difficulty, without accepting my help, and took out a small package of crepe paper sheets from behind her small bed (her husband worked at a pulp and paper mill) and gave it to me "to make something beautiful out of those colors". She caressed me with her fragile hands, with crooked and so delicate fingers, and told me that she would wait for me anytime. I left hopping from one foot to the other, with the unexpected gift in my hand. The bench under the willow tree next to our family grave would be filled with children immediately. I just couldn't enjoy it alone, when the children I met on the road were bored on the sidewalks in front of the houses, among the sawdust laid out to dry. Those, who stayed home, who had escaped the chores of the field, invoking hidden pains. The children from a village without mountains or seas, whom some colorful crepe paper, on a hot summer day, brought out of the boredom of the days that are slowly passing. I would like her to know, from where she is now, probably still smiling, but moving her angelic hands and feet perfectly, probably still wearing wool socks, but white, knitted with 4 needles, that she is also in my thoughts. And not just now, when I found some socks from other times in the trunk.