Breathe
By Barbara Anderson
"As you know, my love, I didn't want to race, but Enzo Ferrari made me do it. I hope I'm wrong, but maybe it's going to be an early death. If I die tomorrow, I will die having lived 28 wonderful years."
This letter was written in 1957 the night before his race by the Spanish pilot Alfonso de Portago to his girlfriend, a Mexican actress Linda Christian, the first Bond girl.
In the last biopic of Ferrari's history, the drivers tell that the custom of the Italian house is that each driver must leave a letter written to a person he loves in the hotel room the night before the race. Just in case.
Which letter would you leave? To whom?
In the Danish series Borgen, after an attack on Danish troops stationed in Afghanistan, a soldier's letter to his father about why he enlisted in the war comes to light. "Every soldier before going into combat, leaves a letter written to his family or to someone very special and it is our obligation to deliver it if he dies in combat," a soldier's father explains to the prime minister. He opens the letter in his office and in tears reads: "Dear Dad, if you are reading this letter now, it means that I am dead. Yesterday I read that in the time we have been here 89,000 Afghan children have had their lives saved. For me, that is enough to justify my life."
What letter would you write? To whom?
The last activity a president does in the United States is to write a letter to his successor. These are his last moments in the Oval Room of the White House and he must write it by hand and leave it in the top right-hand drawer of the most powerful desk in the world.
The envelope only says "Mr. President". In the letter Barack Obama left Donald Trump, in addition to a series of recommendations on the role and responsibility of the first power before the rest of the countries, he takes the license to place at the bottom "take time, in the rush of events and responsibilities, for friends and family. They will guide you through the inevitable difficult times."
What letter would you write? What advice is your best stamp?
"If anyone could have saved me, it would have been you. I have nothing left but the certainty of your goodness." After writing in her signature handwriting a last letter to her husband Leonard, with a handful of stones in her pockets Virginia Wolf would sink forever in a river near her home. a few stones in her pockets and into the river.
What letter would you write? To whom would you leave a message that will be your everlasting memory?
"I, Ennio Morricone, have died". So began the farewell letter of the famous Italian composer. "I announce it this way to all the friends who have always been close to me and also to those a little distant ones whom I say goodbye with great affection. There is only one reason to say goodbye in this way: I do not want to disturb."
What letter would you write? Who would you not want to disturb in your departure?
The opinions expressed are the responsibility of the authors and are absolutely independent of the position and editorial line of the company. Opinion 51.
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