The Goldfinch Taught Me

“The greatest gift my father gave me is the sea”. These were the words said to his children at dinner by one of the protagonists of the movie “The Goldfinch”, that is based on the novel by the American writer Donna Tartt. The words carried me back to the story of my drowning in the sea fifty-five years ago. I did not know how to swim. My father saved me. This story alienated me from the sea for a long time. Nothing binds us; no emotion whatsoever; seeing it does not fill me with wonder; it does not stimulate my imagination to travel… In this exhausted debate about what you prefer in summer: mountain or sea, my choice was always clear-cut. I grew up thinking that the sea is this big monster that preys on the little one. My father saved me from the monster. My father cannot give me a monster. When I learned to swim around the age of fifty (for health reasons), I began to understand the meaning of the sea as a gift. But before Goldfinch, I did not understand that it was a gift from my father. The Goldfinch taught me that no human being is born poor into the world. This is due to God's generosity.