Goodbye to M.L.

About M.L. who died a few days ago at 85.
It does seem dreadful to sum up the life of a friend in a few words but on the other hand, not to write anything would be worse.
She and her husband, who once belonged to the V.I.P. category came into our lives quite by chance, via another friend who shared the love of G.S. dogs and although they live close by, we would never have met them accidentally because of divergent life styles and yet we became friends in an instant.
Back to M.L., a lover of cats, books and her garden, almost a recluse. In all the 25 years I’ve known her, she never left her house, not even for shopping, except to share the occasional evening with a small group of friends. A motley group indeed, some of whom are still alive.
LC, a tiny, tatty bleached blonde of 75 who always wears camouflage trousers, too much make up and a fag in her mouth who runs a stall selling weird clothing in the Rome flea market and is always intent on breeding a champion G.S.. Her husband, G, achieved his one ambition in life, which was to avoid school which didn’t prevent him from acquiring a number of shops that sell very cool clothing to gullible young people. T, the only other living member of the group is an extremely wide and waddling lady whose deceased husband used to be a top civil servant.
M.L.  told me about her  own childhood in the mountains during the 2nd world war, of how she helped the allied forces. Sadly, a materially privileged upbringing, co-existed with emotional neglect and she described herself as a sort of unattractive, brainy, runt.
Later she met her equally bright and also gorgeously good looking husband R at university.
ML and R are/were unusual individuals. Italians, especially from the south, are traditionally open and physically affectionate, whereas my two friends were adverse to any form of touching, even with their own children. I suppose certain things have to be learnt in childhood or not at all, and so coldness is perpetuated from generation to generation.
Perhaps that’s why I understood ML so well, having made the jump from one culture to another, from coldness to warmth and having embraced the latter. Lucky me.
The other unusual aspect that probably drew us together was that they lived by an unwritten rule of relaxed, be yourself openness and in spite, in their case, of having many precious possessions, had no respect for convention or appearances.
So the motley lot of friends, that we were also part of, was a safe haven form this phony materialistic world.
A few years ago, instead of making a will, M.L. began giving her possessions away. When she strated giving me things, I was hesitant to accept them, but since we’d been friends for so long, I did so with grace and gratitude and will treasure them always.
Today’s blip is one of them. It hails from Sicily as so di M.L.

So goodbye my dear little friend. Thank you for your precious friendship.
We will take care of R.