Yesterday we said goodbye for the last time and, maybe, I will be able to write a few lines without ending up in despair. I met you in Turin Bridge Club, when we were 18 years old and passionate about bridge.
Like two wild animals we tested one another, ready to fight to establish the supremacy in the field. However due to a strange alchemy something unique happened, something that happens to only few lucky people: we chose one another, yes, naturally, without talking about it, and we became brothers. Ever since, for nearly 40 years we lived in symbiosis. I keep thinking about all the things we did together, like in a movie, and I found out I have no bad memories. Even when we did argue, your smile, your sarcasm, your intelligence, your way of saying things in a funny and vulgar way, without ever being offensive or rude, all these things transformed even those moments in wonderful memories.
You were a character and we all loved you, for your friends you were a reference point when it came to humour and happiness, and you always had a joke for your acquaintances, you were attentive to them and showed that you cared about them, as if you were saying: I am Guido, you all know me but I also know you and you are part of my world.
You were a very talented bridge champion, but you were different: the features of your personality came across at the table and those that for others would have been weaknesses were you strengths.
I know that you would want all your friends to get on with their lives like when you were with us and you would have been the only one capable to support us in these circumstances, but you left us, forever taking with you part of our lives.
My only consolation is that you will always be in our memories and I will always carry you with me in my broken heart.
Farewell.
Giorgino
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(English edition by Laura Cecilia Porro)