We publish with kind permission of the Publisher the full text of the preface signed by Jovanotti to the book Sammy – A life to embrace
At school they teach us that the heart is an involuntary muscle. Then in life you may learn that yes, it is involuntary, but up to a certain point. There are meetings, actions, things that happen to us that teach us to awaken it, train it, enlarge it, make it more alive, even a little “voluntary”. It’s mostly the meetings.
I met Sammy and it was a blessing to feel his love and friendship, but in meeting him I encountered a world of which he was a luminous vital energetic center of gravity. My heart was full of will when I met Sammy. It wasn’t involuntary at all, it was pure will to be there and to appreciate the simple fact of being alive, of going through the experience of living.
I met Sammy and it was a gift because meeting joy, curiosity and intelligence embodied together in one person is a rare gift.
Even those who knew Sammy only by hearing him speak on TV met him, because in a moment there was just enough of him to fall in love and to feel involved in a glorious mystery enclosed in that tiny body that if you picked him up you risked making him fly away.
Sammy had two parents who didn’t have progeria, so when you saw the three of them together they didn’t have the “Simpsons” effect, the only alien was Sammy. Yet the affection, the strength that came from them were able to make Sammy appear very tall, very normal, a giant. Two words exchanged with him were enough and you forgot his strange appearance, his cartoon voice, to simply be in the company of a good friend, a smart, nice, unique guy.
Amerigo and Laura, Sammy is their boyfriend. They with these two significant names that contain a map: Amerigo as the explorer navigator and Laura as the woman that Petrarca made a symbol of what is greatest and most generative there can be in the world.
I insist, Sammy had two parents who loved him.
This book is above all the story of two parents overwhelmed by the mystery of their son, this book is a good story told in the first person by the mother and father of a child who has become a young man who in just a few years of life has conquered everyone, making us feel an anthology of different emotions. The amazement, the yearning, the affection, the sympathy, the hope, the defeat, the anger, the joy, the admiration, the esteem, the wonder. Sammy, you know if you have this book in your hands, he was a normal and amazing boy, and I know you believe me when I tell you that talking to him was a real pleasure, his intelligence, his irony, his lightness, his depth were astonishing.
But be careful: Sammy moved the world, but he didn’t do it alone. Sammy was the champion of a team and his most decisive allies were his two parents, he was born into a family that loved him very much. Amerigo and Laura are Sammy Basso’s father and mother.
Reading this story of theirs will move you, move you and sometimes make you smile. It reminded me of what a difficult job it is to be a parent and how lucky, however, what a privilege to assist a life that is born small and is already immense, as any life is. A beautiful adventure full of love.
When he turned 24, I sent him a short video to wish him happy birthday. He was at the center of a party with at least 600 people invited and I told him words that I am happy to repeat here, they are so true and will always be true: «Congratulations Sammy! The thing that drives me crazy is how much love there is around you. This is the incredible strength you have. Yours is a truly beautiful presence and I am very happy to be your friend”.
Sammy was such an essential and communicative person that a few words were enough to understand him.
In his short and infinite life, Sammy taught us the essential thing, which is to live, one day at a time, with gratitude and courage.
