Lucille Teasdale. Deborah Cowley

because his father was undergoing an operation in Italy. He suggested to Lucille that she meet him in Italy on her way back to France. She agreed to stop off in Rome so they could spend a few days together. Piero met her at the Rome airport with a bouquet of red roses. They spent three days visiting the famous sights of Rome before travelling together to Besana to visit Piero’s family.

      The family welcomed Lucille like one of their own. Piero was now thirty-five and his parents had almost despaired of his ever marrying. They saw in Lucille the perfect wife for their son. For her part, Lucille felt much more comfortable with them than she had on her earlier visit. But she was still not ready to commit herself.

      At the station platform in Milan, Piero took Lucille’s hands in his and said:“Lucille, I want to offer you my thanks for all your help and support these past few months.” Then he paused, gathered his courage and asked her again, “Will you marry me?”

      As she stepped aboard the train, she gave him a cryptic reply. “I promise you that one day we will see each other again in Gulu.” They kissed goodbye and she left for Marseilles.

      Sorrounded by the Comboni nus, Lucille and Pierio Cut their wedding cake following their marriage in December 1961.

4

       Return to Uganda

      We are the only doctors here and we work with outmuch rest from morning till evening. The needs are so great. We do just about everything, from pediatrics to malaria and wounds inflicted by elephants and lions – Lucille Teasdale, January 1962

      Lucille was glad to be back with her friends at the hospital. Yet as she slotted back into her earlier routine, she found it hard to concentrate on her work. Every minute of the day, she found herself thinking about Piero and about the time they had spent together in Uganda. She missed him terribly and finally admitted to herself that she had fallen in love With him and wanted to share the rest of her life with him.

      Piero was still in Italy but about to leave for Uganda. Lucille telephoned him the night before his departure. “I am calling to give you my answer,” she explained.

      There was a brief pause while Lucille tried to remain calm. “The answer is yes,” she said. “Yes” she would marry him and “yes,” she would return to live with him in Africa. Piero was ecstatic.

      Lucille had never been happier. She was deeply in love and thought about Piero constantly. She wrote to him almost daily in carefully penned letters written on flimsy aerograms.

      “How can I carry on without you?” she wrote. “… I have decided I do not want to do anything without you. I love you, Piero. I need you.” And later, she said: “Do you remember the day I left you at the station and you thanked me? Well, it is I who must thank you for having saved me from myself, from a life of solitude. You have given me so much happiness. You are such a good person, much better than I. I hope that, with time, I will become worthy of you.”

      In order to feel closer to Piero, Lucille began to go to Mass again. “I did it, not yet by conviction, but because it brought me closer to you. It was also very nice to sit and think of you without any distractions.” In a later letter, in a surprising revelation of her feelings of inadequacy, she confided: “Piero, I am not the strong, independent and cold woman that I have given the impression of all these years. I am a little girl who has forgotten to grow up, a little girl who has finally found someone who can take her hand and walk with her through life. If you only knew how helpless I am without you.”

      The flurry of letters continued. Piero was now back in Uganda, and when he had finished his long days work in the hospital, he would sit down and share his thoughts with Lucille. On 5 October, he wrote: “All I want is to love you Lucille. To have you by my side during my life’s journey, to have you beside me in the hospital, in my home, in my car, in my bed, to live with you for the rest of my life.”

      During this period, Lucille became consumed with the idea of motherhood. “No one wants a child more than I, and how I long for you to be the father of my children,” she wrote to Piero. “But I have always had a great fear that a child of mine might have the same awful feelings towards me that I had towards my own mother … Often I wonder if it is better to abandon the idea of motherhood for fear of having children who would hate me…”

      As the weeks progressed, Lucille decided to withdraw from her course in Marseilles. She also went to Paris to cancel her internship. During the meeting, her professor used the occasion to challenge her decision. Why are you giving up the position? Why are you leaving France? What country are you going to? What type of medicine will you be doing there? She became so flustered by all the questions that she burst into tears. The same night, she wrote to Piero: “For many years, I did not know how to cry,” she admitted. “I tried to convince myself that it was not a good thing to cry, but now I believe that deep down, I missed out on something. I believe that you can live more intensely when you are able to be moved, even by small things. It is through you, Piero, that I have rediscovered the soul of my childhood.”

      Piero telephoned his family to tell them about his engagement, and they called Lucille at once to ask her to visit them in Besana. They would not be able to attend the wedding, they told her, as it would be taking place in Uganda, so they insisted on having a party to celebrate the event. Piero could not leave Uganda to join the party, but a telegram awaited Lucille’s arrival in Besana. “Welcome to our home STOP Mama, papa, brothers and sisters all welcome you STOP Impossible to live without you STOP Come Piero.”

      Lucille was still nervous visiting the family, especially without Piero. “I still feel like a misfit when I am with your family,” she told him. “I have tried to escape from my working-class background but I have not yet managed to feel comfortable in the more refined surroundings that you have grown up in. In some ways, I still feel like the little factory worker from our east end neighbourhood. I guess that is why I like the French singer, Edith Piaf, so much. To hear this little woman pour out her grief always brings tears to my eyes.”

      Nonetheless, Lucille soon began to feel more comfortable with Piero’s family. His sister Angela became a special friend and took her shopping to buy their wedding rings. “I chose ones in yellow gold,” she told Piero. “I had forgotten to ask your advice so I hope you will like them.”

      Their shopping spree did not stop there. “Angela wanted me to buy some nightgowns. I cannot bring myself to tell her that I do not want any, that I want to sleep with you just as God made me! And she could not imagine how we could possibly live without beautiful embroidered sheets. When I have the good fortune to have a Piero, I don’t need anything else!”