For everyone he was "Whistle", known as a hard-shelled person who covered a pure and good heart. He was the person everyone could ask for help, knowing that he would always find concrete support and sincere support.

For us he was simply Maurizio, a father, a husband, a father-in-law and a son, who loved his family more than anything else. It was a point of reference, the pillar of the whole family, it was certainty even in the darkest moments.

Then, in November 2020, the beginning of the end. Cholangiocarcinoma with liver metastases, a diagnosis that already seemed like a sentence. We had heard several stories like that, stories of pain and a struggle against an evil that looks like a monster that devours you, but this time it was happening to us.

Despite everything, we have not given up. We toured Italy contacting the best specialists, with the hope of being the one case out of many who can make it. Unfortunately, this did not happen, and in just six months from the diagnosis our fixed point left us alone to bear this immense pain, which seemed and still seems impossible to face. On May 3, 2021 Maurizio, at only 59 years old, is gone, and the "journey" of these terrible six months of illness has returned us, as well as a great emptiness inside, also with a bitter awareness: those suffering from certain types of cancers, defined as "rare", have fewer opportunities for adequate treatment. It is not a priority to invest money in research for low incidence cancers, and we have paid for the results: we have lost it ... And, like us, many others have lost a loved one who had the "misfortune" of having a cancer that affects about 5,000 people a year: too few for the state to pay attention to.

Thanking all those who contributed to the fundraising, we in turn decided to donate this money to APIC, in the hope that one day Cholangiocarcinoma patients will have adequate care and specialized centers.

For Maurizio, who in his life made the help of others almost a mission, we hope to have made him proud with this donation: that his disappearance, for us devoid of understanding and impossible to accept, can help those who are facing his own battle.