Thank You for Supporting the IdentityFabio Fundraiser

It is a testament to his enduring spirit that we all continue to find ways to cope with the absence of Vittorio from our identity community and from our lives. On the day that I learnt of the news, I poured out my immediate feelings in words. But as Ian put it so eloquently (like only he can), we continued to look for ways to operationalize our sadness. In his case, he and Allan Foster set out to honor Vittorio’s legacy by setting up the Vittorio Bertocci Award under the auspices of the Digital Identity Advancement Foundation, which hopefully will succeed in becoming a lasting tribute to the intellect and compassion that Vittorio shared with the identity community. My personal attempt was to try and remember the (often twisted yet somehow endearingly innocent) sense of humor that Vittorio imbued into our personal interactions. And so, prodded by the inquiries from many about the fun (and funny) t-shirt I had designed just to get a good laugh from him at Identiverse, I created a fundraiser for the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network in his honor.

Thanks to all of you Vittorio stans and your incredible generosity, we raised $3,867.38 through t-shirt orders ($917.63) and donations ($2,949.75). I am obviously gratified by the support you gave my little attempt at operationalizing my sadness. But the bonus I wasn’t expecting was the messages people left on the fundraiser site – remembering Vittorio, what he meant to them, and in some cases how cancer affected their lives personally. In these troubling times, it was heartwarming to read these small signals of our shared humanity.

Thank you all once again. And love you Vittorio, always.