The Open Bridge

At the end of this book, the question remains. That is not a shortcoming, but its purpose.

IF — What if…?

The Renato of Today

When I wrote the first IF around the year 2000, I did not know what path the book would still follow. The paper disappeared. The question remained. Today, I understand that a thought is not lost as long as it continues to work within a person.

My life gave those two letters new content. IF now carries the child who seemed to float above his bed, the man who experienced peace after a crisis, the witness beneath the sky of Liège, the builder of the Glass Pyramid and the father who continues to love Marco. It also carries all the people who placed their trust in me.

What Life Added

Their stories taught me that doubt need not be emptiness. Doubt can become an open space in which we listen more carefully and come closer to our own truth. Reality is greater than one person can take in. We know part of it through our senses, part through knowledge and part through experience.

Alongside this, room remains for imagination, faith and hope. IF wants to breathe in that space. Perhaps, after the last page, a reader will have no new answer. Perhaps they will have found the desire to take up an old dream again, to listen to someone without judgement or to look at the stars with different eyes.

That is enough.

Between Knowing and Feeling

The question remains open. From now on, it belongs not only to me, but to everyone who dares to ask it. What if? This book grows out of my life.

Out of the people I have loved, what I have built and lost, and experiences for which I did not always find the right words. Some memories carry a date. Others live on mainly as a feeling: wonder, peace, longing or a suspicion that there is more to discover than we see at first glance. In My Life, I wrote about my family, my Italian roots, my childhood in Belgium, my work and the people who shaped me.

Doubt That Makes Room

With this book, I want to show that same person from within. The entrepreneur who kept starting again, the father who misses Marco and the child who marvelled are not separate people. They belong together. Their experiences form the bridge I am trying to describe here.

On one side of that bridge is the earth: our everyday existence, our responsibility, our relationships, our bodies and our care for one another.

Reality Keeps Growing

On the other side are the questions I associate with the word heaven: what is consciousness, what does love mean, what remains when someone dies, and how do we make room for something we experience intensely but do not fully understand? My search lies between those two sides. I do not write because I can answer every question. I write because staying silent about what has touched me would also leave part of my life untold.

My experiences need not be understood in the same way by everyone. One reader will recognise something in them. Another will seek different explanations. Both are welcome as readers.

Daring to Dream Again

That is why I allow my story and further reflection to exist side by side in these pages. First, I tell what I remember. Then the questions that arise from it receive more room. Sometimes an experience connects with what others call an out-of-body experience, a meaningful coincidence or intuition.

That recognition is the beginning of a conversation. It does not settle the explanation once and for all. Numerology has gained a special place in that conversation. Numbers helped me reflect on my own path and opened the door to other people’s stories.

But the person behind the calculation remained more important than the number. That applies to this book too.

A Gift to the Reader

My life cannot be reduced to a formula, and neither can the reader’s. My longing for Marco runs through many of these chapters. Remembering him means continuing to see his life: his ideas, his enthusiasm, our collaboration and the conversations we could have. At the same time, Michael, my grandchildren, Dorina, my parents, my family and my friends belong to the love that connects me to life.

I want to carry my attention for those I miss towards those who stand beside me today. My hope is that this book becomes a meeting place. A place where someone may ask a question without being judged immediately.

IF

Where grief is not a failing. Where curiosity and careful thought can help one another. And where a thought only gains real value when it changes something in how we treat one another. This book began with the question of how my life and my inner search touch each other.

Along the way, the child, the father, the entrepreneur and the listener kept coming together. The experiences differ, but the person trying to understand and to love runs through every chapter. New stories will be added. Perhaps I will be able to put some memories into clearer words.

Perhaps a conversation will make me look again at a thought that had become familiar. I want to preserve that room. What I hope to pass on is the courage to live attentively. To leave a question open without leaving the person who asks it alone.

To take responsibility for what we ourselves set in motion. And to carry forward in our own gestures the love we have received. Growing in connection and awareness. Renato Rossi

IF — What if…?
What meaning do you give to the words “what if”?