For Cristina Castagna

Cristina too has left us and will never return from her Broad Peak. All too often we find ourselves in this situation. Words fail. Alone, with only our thoughts. As if empty. Even if we'd like to tear down that void with a scream. With a no! But everything, in these moments, continues to seem useless and futile. Like trying to understand how the accident occurred. With all its whys, ifs, and buts which always lead nowhere. A void followed by words which seem only a ritual trite. Something already seen before. Written too painstakingly in the past. Sad and useless at the same time.

But Cristina was anything but useless. She wasn't a sad woman. She had a heart which shone like her large eyes. She was driven by a passion like someone who follows it and believe in life. I stop to think about her patients, those which she looked after every day as a nurse in Vicenza hospital's First Aid ward. I'm certain that for them the loss is immense. Because Cristina had a very personal way of being close to people. And Cristina also had a great ability, she knew how to listen. And the fact that she was an 8000m mountaineer never shone through. One was struck by other aspects.

Cristina preferred to talk little about herself. She preferred to joke, introducing herself as "El Grio", the cricket of native town Valdagno, instead of talking about her 4 8000m peaks to which one now adds her fifth, fatal peak. She preferred to smile and her joy was always contagious. Even if she suffered from that way of mountaineering which she, with her sensitivity, failed to comprehend completely. That world of mountaineering which judges regardless of the man or woman in front of them. Cristina was wounded by this. And in some respects she didn't even seem to be a mountaineer. Or, if you prefer, she seemed to be a mountaineer catapulted by chance into a world which was not hers, which lacked her sensitivity.

As a woman and alpinist Cristina wanted to go her own way. She had the courage to take on, especially in the beginning, all the responsibility of this choice. She always did so with the lightness and with that smile that distinguished her. As a small great woman she set off from Valdagno and explored the world of thin air. A world which made her smile and cry exactly like life itself. A world to which she gave her great heart.