A lovely story

[fpb]

Hundreds of former and current students spent six months to organize a huge reunion in Rome to celebrate the retirement of their old elementary school teacher, Giovanna Bittoni, who reached the legal retirement age after forty years of unbroken service in the same school, Villa Paganini. Several made time to come from abroad, as far as China, and one person drove down all the way from Switzerland - a mere ten hours' drive.

It took long hard work, mostly on the phone and internet - tracking down old classmates, passing the word and hoping it would be passed in turn, even trying a name on e-mail companies such as yahoo and hotmail in the hope that the person concerned had an account there. Eventually, pretty much everyone was tracked down. A surprise party was organized. A few who really were unable to come, sent presents. There were piles of personal presents and a common gift from the whole group - a luxury trip abroad. It was their way of showing that they understood how much of her life she had given: "Giovanna has had a tough life, but she never asked for a moment's rest," said one of the organizers.

The lady, not being altogether a fool, had felt that something was being organized, but she was stunned at the scale of the event: "I could never have imagined such a surprise," she said. She recovered and more or less reviewed everyone present, remembering almost everyone back to the first year she had ever taught: "You," she would say to a successful-looking middle-aged man, "you would do nothing but play football. Italian and you were two completely alien things." But when she was given the presents, she was near to tears: "All this enthusiasm and generosity from my kids, and to think that they still remember, makes me feel happy, feel rich inside".

Ms.Bittoni on realizing the scale of her retirement party

Some of the ex-students added that more good had come out of it: a lot of friendships have been born and reborn, and "now that we found each other again, we're not going to forget each other so easily again." "We send dozens of e-mails a day, chat away, swap views and advice, or simply remember the old days".

Comments

[lyssiae.livejournal.com]

Forty years? When did she start teaching? She doesn't look anywhere near retirement age, although I may just be atrocious at guessing ages from photos!

[fpb.livejournal.com]

A lot of Italian ladies in their early sixties look like that. Especially if they dye their hair. No, she looks exactly the type to me.

[lyssiae.livejournal.com]

Ok, thanks :)

[tashmania.livejournal.com]

That really made me smile :) Not only because of the wonderful nature of the gesture, but also because of that last paragraph.

Thank you for sharing it :)

[kikei.livejournal.com]

That is beautiful. I'm thinking of my own primary school teacher, whom I spoke to after about 14-15 years last year... he is still teaching in the same school, and he has gone through so much but is still working away at it, helping children take their first steps in education and watching them walk away. He said he was touched by my email and was so happy to hear that I was writing professionally, especially since he had been feeling rather down and unappreciated at the time and to know that he made such an impact on one student's life was enough for him to know his foray into teaching was worth it.

But his own email to me... it floored me. He remembered everything about me, down to my favourite puppet from his collection. And this is so many years down the line.

One of the things I plan to do when I go to Hong Kong is visit my old school and seek him out. I want to tell him in person what he's done for me. I know I can't give presents on the scale of these students, but it certainly has inspired me to do something for the man who, unltimately, gave me the pieces I needed to understand my life... without even knowing it.

-Kiks