THE SON

Gillettenarrative welcomes you. You don’t yet know how lucky you are — you’re about to receive something, and no one asked you for anything in return. You’re stepping inside my world now, close enough to touch the blade. But I don’t sell blades. That one belongs to my mother alone. When this ends, you won’t be the same. You’ll already be looking for the next one. For now, start here. Take your moment.

I was born by my mother and, as a son, I carry many chances of resembling her. At least that is what medical literature suggests, and for once I see no reason to disagree.

Yet beyond physical features, there is something else. Something that arrives later. It reveals itself through the years, in the traces that remain, in what we truly are rather than in what others claim to be.

Identity may begin with an X factor, but no one really knows where genetics ends and where humanity begins. DNA explains the body. Life explains the rest.

People say intelligence comes from the mother. It does. But character is not inherited through formulas. It emerges through gestures, habits, choices, and silences. Ethics, temperament, style, presence. The invisible architecture of a human being.

And sooner or later someone says: “He’s just liked his father.” Visible to everyone. Understood by very few.

No son is entirely his father. No daughter is entirely her mother. We all belong to a larger game where surprises never stop appearing. And yet, in my case, the final answer seemed simple. It was all the fathers.

That elegant man never raised his voice. When he spoke, it almost sounded like a song, a curious blend of Italian, French, and Spanish carrying only a handful of words. Three words were often enough. “I’m here.”

For years we took them for granted. Then one day the impossible arrived. And standing in front of the impossible, he smiled and said: “You only pay one dollar.”

At that moment we understood who he really was. He was my father.

But that was not the real revelation. The real revelation came years later. One morning I heard myself answering a difficult situation with the same calm. The same silence before speaking. The same smile before deciding. And for a moment it felt as if he had entered the room. Then I realized he had not entered at all. He had never left.

What remained? A familiar face. A voice with a different sound. A personality still resonates across time. Because in every piece of music, the voice is not what matters most. The sound is. The sound that survives. The sound that carries a soul.

And that was the final surprise. I had spent my life looking for my father in my memories. Only to discover that he had been living inside my choices all along.

He was only my father. And somehow, he still is.