Mom passed away. A day of August 2019, two weeks before my flight from Rome brought me back to her. She was impatient to see me again but something in her was in a hurry, the ferocious Alzheimer was demanding the last efforts of her body. A few weeks earlier, during the usual phone call of the weekend, after having discussed the usual meteorological considerations as usual, she said point-blank: "please remember, keep smiling". I was stunned, I had just listened to a phrase that was a masked farewell. Those words echoed for a long time and they explained to me that everything was already traced. The smile as a small cross that I carry with me, a heavy and dutiful left. Daily neurosis that I have to hide as if she was always in front of me. I owe her this. With all due difficulty.