FLASH
Shkruar nga Ben Blushi
There is no sickness, no pain, no request, no regret, perhaps no care, except the weight of the years that have now become a century.
My maternal grandmother, Mynever Shuteriqi, turned 100 years old today. All of us who have gathered to celebrate her birthday ask each other how she got here, while she has a simpler explanation: because she gave us her word.
Myneveri had decided to live to be 100 years old and he succeeded laughing. There is no sickness, no pain, no request, no regret, perhaps no care, except the weight of the years that have now become a century. She lives like a man who has no tomorrow but only yesterday.
It lives as a pile of memories.
Myneveri was born the day Fan Noli became prime minister, went to school when Ahmet Zogu became king, tore up Mussolini's posters, was arrested by the Italians as an anti-fascist and had to wait a year to go up the mountain against the Germans because the partisans told him to still very small.
She got to know a country that had just been separated from the Turks, then saw how Albania became with the Italians, then with the Germans, with the Russians, with the Chinese and now with the Americans. When she was born World War II had not happened, the holocaust was unknown, fascism was a ghost, and communism a dream she believed.
A century ago, when Myneveri was born as a Fico, in Gjirokastër, most of the conveniences that fill our lives since the Internet, computers, washing machines, espresso machines, dishwashers, televisions, air conditioners, vaccines, aspirin, Instagram and nuclear weapons did not exist and neither were invented. Albania had no more than two schools, no university, and almost no hospital. The first car in Albania came after Myneveri was born together with the cinema and printing houses.
When Myneveri was born, Albania had no boulevards, the first Albanian novel had not yet been published while little girls were singing in school. Albania had only 800 thousand starving inhabitants and many wild forests and therefore her father was a forest inspector, while she herself fell in love with a communist writer, up in the mountains.
Her life was a stubborn, rigorous, continuous and painful dedication to Dhimitër Shuterić, the man she served as a friend, as a wife, as an editor, as an archivist, as a doctor and finally as a writer.
When he left, she showed his life, and she does this every day: she shows Dhimtri's life, or rather her life with Dhimtri. Maybe that's why he lived so long because he had so much to tell. Now that she's 100 years old, she's free and can do whatever she wants. He has told them all and he can run away whenever he wants.
In the end, Mynever kept his word. He turned 100 years old.
Lini një Përgjigje