Miguel Bornaschella - The satisfaction of having achieved my aims

Michael Bornaschella

THE SATISFACTION OF HAVING ACHIEVED MY AIMS

FIRST EDITION

NARRATIVA

Though I might run a high risk of rushing towards ordinary places, I would like to express my gratitude to some people, not for the sake of a mere compliment or to remind them how valuable their cooperation has been, but to keep them in my heart forever.

To begin with, to my children. Their constant company, their love and their understanding have been the support of my life. Likewise, my constant goal has been to look after them and ensure their welfare. But like any parents I must have failed in some cases and though they might have been many or a few, I have always had the feeling that I should do something more for them. However, I have always done my best. But, I promise to go on doing even more. In every single event I intend to compensate for all those circumstances in which I might have hurt them. In spite of the fact that many of those events were inevitable, my sense of guilt is also inevitable.

Most probably, not only have my children been hurt along my way. I would like to apologize to them all sincerely. But it has happened that the events in my life have been meteoric and eventually I have not had time to smooth them, one by one, according to the decisions taken by the time...

To my parents. I want to thank them not only for their permanent presence but for their unlimited teaching as well. Neither did they dedicate to education a fixed place nor a fixed time. Their task was always done without warning, but so clearly that many of their beneficial effects have extended up until nowadays in such a way that I have mentioned them in many sheets in my book. For all this I am grateful to them since their cultural legacy will last and live in the next generations of my family and the families of those who know me.

To my grandchildren. I wish them a lot of happiness, the same I wish my children and I also hope they will keep their eyes, their ears and their hearts wide open to learn as much as their parents or even more.

To Marcela. She is my partner and my friend. I am grateful to her for her determination and honesty, for her great and incomparable human qualities and for having charged with the translation of my book from Spanish into English with great enthusiasm. But indeed I have got many more personal and major reasons to be grateful to her. After such a long way I have luckily met the person I have been dreaming of. Her labour, dealing with my personality, has not been easy, I am afraid. She has witnessed disputes of different types, she has been able to understand and interpret me by giving me confidence in my points of view. She has also discussed with me and in all the cases she has accompanied me with her good and kind heart.

To my sister, Livia. I would like to express my fraternal affection for her being so supportive with me always. I want to thank her for her willingness to solve the gaps which occurred in my mind while writing my book.

To Alberto Miramontes. I want to express my gratitude to him for listening to me and asking me eagerly again and again about everything in order to understand me better and accurately. This enabled him to register all the information and write my story.

Finally to all those who want to have a better country. I invite you all, from the bottom of my soul, to take part in making our country an endless field of opportunities, with your constant and honest work. Then our children’s migration and even our own one will stop being an option.

With sincere gratitud,

Michael Bornaschella

Sometime after starting this adventure, Miguel suggested that I should set aside some space and time to write about my own experience. For a while I I have been struggling about which aspect or point I would like to emphasise. In a way, I may say, it turned embarrassing for me to make comments about him. The fact is that I am not exempted from the “general principles of law”. Not only am I the person who helped him express his feelings, attitudes, behaviour, aspirations and skills but, I am for the rest of the days, his employee. The truth is that I would like to greatly thank him for allowing me be part of both things.

At the very moment we started this task which is coming to an end today, I was lucky enough to learn first-hand a rich and eloquent testimony which has often impressed and moved me deeply. I met Miguel twenty years ago and he has always been good at re-telling anecdotes and stories. Most of them have been written here. Then I have pictured, no doubt, a very moving story.

And as time went by, he trusted me to carry out this historical and personal account. He also gave me the chance to ask him again and once more, he gave me the necessary space to intrude on his privacy, his feelings and know much more than what was needed but all that my curiosity required to get a comprehensive view. Thanks to all this I have been able to picture before my eyes a story so moving that I am not sure my pen will be able to provide an accurate description.

Right now I might highly praise Miguel, compliment his strengths or even stand out his skills, but without deepening any of those aspects, I would like to say that he is a different man. I might stand out his achievements, recall his failures and frustrations, but I assume that nothing describes him better or as precisely as the name that he chose for his book.

I feel grateful to him for the opportunity to share the experience of this book. I am grateful for all this and for these twenty years during which he has honoured me with his friendship.

Alberto Miramontes

Miguel and Alberto during the last stage writing this book.

Before the holes of my memory go on increasing and finish breaking down the initial idea, I have decided to give my testimony. I have had this intention since long ago, but I have decided to rush into it because of different reasons and now it has become imperative follow this interior order.

Whenever this idea had hardly happened to appear, it seemed to be an accumulation of experiences which got lost and then turned up once again along the long way made. By those days they were just a collection of anecdotes which I told whenever I thought it was appropriate or whenever some events occurred and brought to the surface a useful message of the anecdote. The daily events carried and brought back my memories from one side to the other in such an easy way that it was no effort for me to retell them, repeat them, and sometimes do all this to even the same people once again – though they interrupted me to make me aware of it … and thus pass my experience with the corresponding moral, even picturing it, to my children, grandchildren, friends, old and new employees and their families … Should I be arrogant if I tried to teach? That is not my purpose. Neither do I think I am arrogant whenever I say that I would like to leave my testimony.

The story of my life is simple. So simple and moving like the ones of any other Italian immigrant. But the great desire and will to outdo oneself is what makes the difference between one and other, and I feel I have the satisfaction of having achieved my aims. Neither because I have had some public recognition nor because I got over my fellows, but because I overcame myself. I will feel actually satisfied if I can make people understand that I overcame myself because this is how I feel like every morning and every night. And I still go on trying to do so day after day.