A Valentine’s Special: giving back, a dialogue of love

This article was exclusively written for the Sting by Mr Filippo Tusa is a student of Medicine and Surgery at La Sapienza University, Rome. Mr Tusa is affiliated to the International Federation of Medical Students Associations (IFMSA). The opinion expressed in this piece belongs to the writer and does not necessarily reflect IFMSA’s view on the topic, nor The European Sting’s one. I’m sure you often stop, suddenly. No, not physically. That would be impossible. I mean a stop of a mental time. Everything moves. And you are there. You see. You focus on something that seems to have attracted your attention. And you cannot do anything about it. Because you feel you have been drawn by something very strong. And then, suddenly, there it is. A thought. An image. Then another one. Then a sound. Then images. A newborn still wrapped in the heat of the breathing uterus. The first breath. Life, yearning. A yearning for hope. Hungry regurgitation of the world, in the world. A child, just born, who breathes. The air that inflates the lungs and gives life is not hers. It was given to him. And he gives it back. This is how our first action is to give back. Give back the air. Give back the wind of life. Give back the breath of a new hope. Give back. Making what has been given but not quite the same. Make sure that something is where it was. To give back. To return. Return to the primordial state. One more thought. Again images. Again sounds. Smiles. Green eyes. Pebbles and women’s hair, short. Very short. Barefoot feet taste the sea bubbles. And shy they retract to the embrace of the first sea. Hugs. Primordial. How are all the hugs that are really hugs, as the first woman who embraced the first man, or the first woman who embraced the first woman. Or the newborn who twists at the mother’s breast. Give back love, come back to life. Breath. And it is not love, not words, but to give back. Return to life, giving it back. Return to truth. Return to nature. Return to dormant instincts, return free. Feel. And here we, you, I become a giving and giving back to oneself to the other. More than giving. Return. Because it does not come back crumpled or impoverished. And what is given back is changed and changes in return; and it is a continuous dialogue. So, the next time I will see the girl who is the center of these images, I’ll tell her: I give you back. And I will kiss her. With my life, I give back. When I was born, the first breath, was to give back and gives me life. The same life that has been insufflated somewhere else in the world, ages ago. The same air that has been insufflated for centuries. So, when I will die, my last breath will be to give back. Because I will not hold back the air inside of me. With a last breath, I will give back my life. So, from that first, until the last breath, all our life is a give back. And if it is not given back, everything remains as it is. Nothing moves. And if nothing moves, nothing lives. About the author Mr Filippo Tusa is a student of Medicine and Surgery at La Sapienza University. Passionate about logical, reasoning and every possible inclination. An intense pugilist of oratory. Greedy and erratic reader. Insatiable traveler, mental and spatial. Chaotic and anxious friend. In short, a bad guy. In two words: in love. Motto: “Si sedes non is. Si non sedes is “.