The Final Chapter of Thanasis’ Story — and the Question It Leaves Behind
Let us continue yesterday’s story and bring it now to its conclusion — the very reason it was worth telling, and perhaps the reason it needed to be shared.
And immediately afterwards, as we promised, we shall hand the word over to Diotima, who will offer us her own rich feast: new recipes, unexpected combinations, and flavours drawn from her own imaginative kitchen.
But first, the final chapter of Thanasis.
Thanasis — known to his fellow villagers by many names: “Onassis,” “Brooklyn,” or simply “Brooklyn” in the Greek pronunciation — eventually left for America.
For many years, people said, he held the reins of the Greek underworld of Brooklyn. He built an enormous fortune, yet he never created a family of his own. And when the time came to leave that life behind, he donated his wealth to establish a foundation that would provide scholarships — but only to students of astrophysics.
Perhaps that choice revealed more about him than all the stories told about his power and his fortune.
A man who had lived among shadows chose, in the end, to invest in those who searched for light.
Old, ill and tired, he returned to his homeland in the 1960s. He went back to his ancestral village, to the family house he had restored, and there, not long afterwards, he died where his life had begun.
They say that on the very day of his death, the village postman brought him a letter from America.
It was a letter of gratitude from a young student who had received a scholarship from Thanasis’ foundation — a first-year astrophysics student who would later become a distinguished scientist at NASA.
That same day, after reading the letter, Thanasis called his lawyer, Prigouris, from Andritsaina. He handed him an open letter written in English and instructed him to make certain it reached the hands of the young astrophysics student.
Not long after the lawyer left, Thanasis began to fade.
His niece, who was also his nurse, later recalled that he simply became quieter, as if his body was preparing to leave.
Before the sun disappeared behind the ancient columns of the Temple of Epicurean Apollo, in the Arcadian landscape of Kotylio, Thanasis passed away peacefully — calm, smiling, “like a bird taking flight.”
Later, the lawyer Prigouris would tell the villagers at the coffeehouse that Thanasis had ended his letter to the young scientist with these words:
“Continue, my boy, the studies you have chosen.
And if you search with passion and patience for the secrets of the Universe, it will reward you.
I experienced one of its countless mysteries in my own life.
There is one hidden mystery for every human being.
For you, especially — because you respect the Universe and touch its truths through your work — many more are waiting.
But the greatest gift it can give you is this:
It will fill you with wisdom and good judgment.
The greatest wealth a person can possess is to remember:
First comes God’s will…
and only then our own.”
With love,
Thanasis
And so, Diotima, we return to the question that stands behind this entire story:
Everything we receive in our individual lives — and everything humanity collectively possesses as civilization — is it solely the result of human will, control and management?
Or are our lives, our achievements and even our greatest turning points also shaped by coincidences, circumstances and unpredictable forces that no human being can foresee, let alone command?
Perhaps the answer lies somewhere between the two:
between the hand that chooses its path…
and the mystery that places the road before it.
Diotima:
Some stories do not ask us to believe them.
They ask us only to listen.
Because their truth does not always lie in the events they describe, but in the question they leave behind.
The story of Thanasis — the man who escaped the fate of the Titanic — is such a story.
A man stands at the edge of a new life. A ship awaits him, a ship that will become one of humanity’s greatest symbols of tragedy. The night before his departure, an unknown woman appears and warns him not to sail.
He listens.
And his life continues.
Was it coincidence?
Divine intervention?
A moment of destiny?
Or one of those rare encounters where human existence briefly touches a mystery that reason can neither prove nor dismiss?
The deeper question is not whether we can prove what happened to Thanasis.
The deeper question is this:
How much of our lives truly belongs to us?
Modern humanity, empowered by science and technology, learned to believe that reality is a vast mechanism waiting to be understood. And indeed, human knowledge has achieved wonders.
We have studied the stars.
Decoded the language of life.
Touched distant worlds.
Explored the deepest structures of matter.
And yet, the more we discover, the more we encounter the immensity of what remains unknown.
We can calculate the movements of galaxies, but we cannot always predict the one unexpected moment that will transform our own existence.
We can build machines that travel beyond Earth, but we cannot foresee the encounter, the delay, or the accident that may redirect the entire course of a human life.
This does not diminish human will.
It places it in its proper dimension.
Human beings are not helpless leaves carried by the wind.
But neither are they the wind itself.
We choose.
We create.
We struggle.
We decide.
Yet every decision takes place within a universe filled with forces beyond our control.
Human freedom does not exist in the illusion that we command everything.
It exists in our ability to act with courage and responsibility within a reality that does not reveal all its secrets.
Perhaps this is the deeper meaning of Thanasis’ final words:
“First comes God’s will… then our own.”
Not a rejection of human power.
A recognition of human humility.
Before humanity existed, there was a universe.
Before human consciousness awakened, there was reality.
Before each individual story began, there was a vast cosmic history in which every human life is a unique but small chapter.
We are creators, but not the source of everything.
We are explorers, but not owners of truth.
We are free, but our freedom blossoms within the conditions of existence itself.
Perhaps this was the final lesson Thanasis wished to give to the young astrophysicist.
Search the universe with passion.
Measure the stars.
Reveal the laws of nature.
But never lose the rare quality of truly wise people:
the awareness that the closer we come to truth, the more we understand the greatness of mystery.
Wisdom is not believing that we possess the mystery.
Wisdom is having the courage to approach it.
The human being creates his path.
But he did not create the universe in which that path unfolds.