Your call was the first, a little after sunrise, like every day of May 22 (and not only, because it's not just me anymore!) but I was getting Anna ready for school, so I didn't answer. Then, my friends started congratulating me. As usual, I postponed calling you, as I always do, as if knowing that you understand, that you forgive, that you are patient, that you will respond quickly, when I have time. Because I know you are there. Because I believe you are eternal. And you are not, I am starting to feel it, my age is two years old... another prefix. But all the wishes I received on my birthday, all the thoughts, are due to you, to the greatest extent. I am what I am, because you helped me become this way.

Because you let me dream, sing in the orchards, run in the rain, run to the stream while the day was long, climb tall trees, eat cherries and feed the starling chicks (otherwise the enemies of the orchards), sing at everyone's weddings and try to understand death, perched on that morgue, in the village, running for pennies at the crossroads of streets. Because you understood my permanent desire to feel free and helped me look for brilliance in seemingly dark and opaque things. Because you encouraged me, to draw ever more distant limits and to look only forward, with confidence and courage. Because you reprimanded me without fear, and even "grafted" me parentally and rewarded my successes. With books and camps. Because you accepted and loved my friends and schoolmates. Because you quickly understood that I couldn't study chemistry at all, even though I dreamed of becoming a doctor, and I can't do agronomy anymore, because of the times. And you agreed to let me repeat the 9th grade, so that I could attend the Music High School, newly established after '89, being by my side, whatever that might have meant. And it wasn't easy at all!

I have long since gotten over the bitterness that I didn't have a car as a child. And no color TV, bicycle, video, light organ or tape recorder, Turkish clothes, a new house or who knows what else others had, when times changed and values ​​were completely turned upside down, and our house full of books seemed smaller and more cramped?! I know, our reproaches (although, not often!) hurt you to the core. Because you saw further. And you knew how sterile all the new ones are. And you continue to buy us books and albums, then sheet music, from the ever smaller and more unjust incomes, for some honest and modest intellectuals. And you delighted us with good food prepared in hundreds of ways (obtained with immense risks). And with clothes made by Mama Coca, from patterns taken from old magazines and adapted as only she knew how, from fabrics purchased with great interventions. No one had the same ones anymore, but we didn't understand exactly at the time how lucky we were. You always found us wonderful shoes, made of leather, even if that meant giving up a lot. And stories. And we made memories, a dressing for the times to come. And freedom without limits. And you always told us that we would be able to make it in the world, regardless of the weather and times, with what we have in our heads and souls. With what no one can ever take from us!

You allowed me to do things that others don't even dream of. Or maybe I don't even want to. You allowed me to chop wood with an axe (the smallest one, admittedly), to draw water from deep wells, to eat biscuits with mustard, in the last days of fabulous expeditions through the Apuseni Mountains, to hang on the tails of carts, to the bakery and back, to walk from one village to another, in search of new experiences, to witness the births of calves and piglets (through the CAP stables) and to baptize them, to collect eggs, to "wish luck" with my grandfather and his patients, with the glass of red wine produced from the vault's grapes, so that I would do well. Although you knew that it wouldn't be very pleasant, you didn't force me to see what happens when you put your tongue on frozen iron fences. You never thought that I would end up "chasing" my father's carriage from the farm, stolen from in front of the City Hall, a few kilometers or that I would fill it with children who wanted to feel...on the wings of the wind. You pulled me by the ears hard then (I think I can easily remember), but now, I know for sure that it is one of the great stories of my childhood, told at meetings with loved ones. Not otherwise, but the horse (Puiu') was fine, and the children, except my sister, coped honorably with the unprecedented experience.

You have given me wisdom, even if it sometimes seems foreign. Although you still scold me for it, you surely know, deep down, that it is so! You know that I can move mountains. For my loved ones, for my world. And I know that I am fine the way I am, at 42, 5 kilos more or less, with heels or without (better without!). I know that I can look like I came out of the box in 10 minutes (without help) and all I need is…to need. I know that I am fine in my own skin (slightly wrinkled, sensitive and intolerant to perfume and pigments), without tattoos and piercings, no matter how refractory my opinion on the subject may seem. But that doesn't mean that I don't love the friends who prefer them, if that makes them feel in harmony with themselves.

You taught me how to make a fire, change light bulbs and fuses, how to handle the tractor battery from which I received electricity (with blankets on the window, for fear of them seeing the light coming through, on winter evenings, when it got dark early!), how to do our homework (there might be some dilemmas here, for the younger ones), how to open and close the gas cylinder.

You taught me to handle myself in any situation. To make imperial feasts from the most amazing ingredients. To greet anyone, anywhere. Not to lie and not to steal (although you certainly knew how I would sneak under Mr. Duță's fence, when the first strawberries that were ripening were there, or how I would "negotiate" with 'Nea Maxim, the guard at the CAP, who adored me, to let me perch in the cherry tree with the first ripe cherries in the village). You educated me not to deceive and not to hurt, with word or deed. To help anyone who seems to be in need, without asking for anything in return. You taught me to care. Maybe too much. Maybe too often. Sometimes, unfortunately, about people who don't deserve it. And not to envy anyone, because that would be dishonorable, for someone who wants to live beautifully. You explained to me that people who don't deserve our friendship will distance themselves from us, at some point. Because fate arranges everything, and places each one where they belong, in darkness or in light.

I received messages that made me cry. From the heart and with sobs. Because those who wrote them to me, (some wrote messages on entire pages), did so because they felt a certain way. For me. For who I am. Thanks to you, mom and dad, I am like this. Because, if the end of the world came, and we (a few people, all those I feel close to and dear to me!) were left alone on earth, I would rise from the dust, take their hand and, after crying profusely, looking back, I would start singing, looking forward. Then, I would find something good and pure in the ashes. A seed. A pebble. A grain of wheat and a flower petal. A thread and a straw. And, smiling, I would set out with them to draw a new world. Because I can't do it any other way. Because, my dear parents, you never had wealth. But you helped me, in the first 7 and many years after, to always have with me everything I needed, to start over at any time. And there is no greater legacy! And the words or deeds that would help me thank you enough are too few.