Letter from a mother to her rejected son: "I have never loved you so much as today when I see you losing"
In an increasingly glossy reality that is constantly told - amplifying it with every possible social network - that there are only winners and that exclusively celebrates victories, successes and praises - no matter if real or constructed - the choice of a mother to support with love the son in a moment of defeat such as school failure helps to find the right measures in a world that too often forgets to deal with true reality. Here are the words of a mother who, far from justifying her child's shortcomings and errors, prefers comfort and wisdom and the precious teaching that in life one can and must also lose.
My son, this morning the school called me to tell me you didn't make it. You will have to repeat the year. Your professor was saddened, never as much as I have had to hear his words. I wanted to tell him that you fought until the last hour of the last day, then I thought that after all it was a useless clarification. I know it and I will remember it. I spent half an hour staring into space thinking about how to tell you. You fought to the last.
You even got eight in the history check on the penultimate day of school. But it was not enough, because you were a disaster in mathematics, physics and even in Italian, due to four unprepared in drums. And then Latin so-so, sciences not recovered the first quarter. Because now that counts too, damn it.
I went into your room, I told you and you didn't believe it. You thought of a joke. Of course it wasn't. I saw your expression that went from astonished to defeat. You lost your battle because you believed you could do what is not always taken for granted: get results by committing only at the last moment, inventing a miracle. It can and sometimes succeeds, but also to work miracles you need bases of credibility. Now you know.
Excellence is asked of your generation. You must be perfect, because you are few and you grow in the idea that believing in yourself uncritically always works. And that being incredible is the answer, and by now you know it's not like that. Being extraordinary people is a status that is acquired with victories, but above all with defeats. You underestimated the implications, you believed you could afford not to do your duty and in the end you hoped that the little you did was good for everyone. No, what you did as you see was not enough.
You were convinced, but the stroke of genius doesn't always pay off. You had a stroke of genius in some subjects that didn't cost you too much effort, while you gave up on the others. The stroke of genius used this way works once: it is repeated only when you have spent a lot of time exercising. When you have written, played, sang, read, counted enough to ruin your eyes, fingers, throat. When you have learned everything you need, even if it does not seem to you it can be minimally useful for your purpose. Do you know why? Because you haven't found your purpose yet. You found yourself in May having to recover what you thought you could do in a moment and that you can't do in a moment. You deluded yourself that everything could be done without effort or with moderate effort. Today you found out that it doesn't work like that. That you can tell yourself that you are good (and you are), but to be really good you need to have the humility to open books and study boring things every day. You will forget them later, not before: this is the secret. What will remain with you will be part of you, will become what you will be. And when you know all the things the school asks for, it still won't be enough. But you already know this, because you are the new generation. Even the old woman knows it well, if that can console you in any way.
Alighieri Dante, the guy you didn't study, had to suffer humiliations worse than yours. Expelled from home and his country, he begged for hospitality, died alone and no one remembered him for at least three hundred years. Today he is the most successful writer in the world. This is one of his famous triplets.
«You will try as it tastes of salt
the bread of others, and how hard it is calle
going down and going up the stairs. "
The time has come for you to learn how to tackle those stairs. These stairs are yours. Collect the soul from the ground and climb those steps, one by one. Show them. I have never loved you so much as today that I see you losing.
