The other day, at the small group home where I live, a young man sat at the dinner table and began to sing a love song. The chorus was full of tenderness and longing. Paolo listened, then suddenly left the room. Paolo is twenty-six years old. He is a man who has been abandoned. That rejection wounded him deeply, and for a long time he hid his oversensitivity behind acts of extreme violence. I knew what was happening in his heart. The words of that song spoke to everything buried in the depth of his being: they spoke of his hope, and at the same time, of his reality. "I have not yet found you... I am always waiting for you." In that moment, he needed a look that would say to him: "Yes, I understand your longing. There is something sacred in it. Perhaps it will never be fulfilled, but I respect it deeply."
Sometimes you see people considered prudent and wise who make jokes when they encounter a handicapped man and woman holding hands. As if, because they are "wounded," their tenderness were a caricature of reality rather than a profound feeling.
Love is the same whether a person is handicapped or not. I am always struck when a "wounded" girl or boy writes a love letter. The language is identical, whether we are profoundly retarded or have just finished our studies at the Polytechnic. The language of love is very simple, very poor: "I love you." Love makes us simple again, humble, and small.
It is true that there can be a world of dreams for both handicapped and non-handicapped people. They listen to records and surround themselves with large photographs of movie stars. It is a simple dream, even crude, and completely divorced from reality.
But this dream of loving and being loved in return can express itself in a much more authentic way. The other evening, Vincenzo, who lives in a psychiatric hospital, had come to spend a weekend with us. He is a very fragile man, full of tenderness and at the same time full of anguish and aggression. I asked him: "Vincenzo, what is your hope?" He answered with confidence: "I hope to leave the hospital, to get married, and to start a family."
Getting married—what does it mean?
The statement "I hope to get married" carries very different meanings for different people. For many, it means reaching adulthood.
Being married means being free, independent, leaving mom and dad, breaking free from their guardianship, having a home of one's own. This is celebrated with a great party. It would be wonderful to be at the center of that celebration, just once.
It is true that getting married also means having children. The tenderness that people called handicapped often show toward small children is often incredible. For a girl, this dream of having children runs even deeper, because it is not only her heart that longs for a child, but her body as a woman, made to receive and welcome one. But the words "I want to get married" express above all a deeper desire: to be the one. To be chosen.
If this is true for anyone, one must understand what it means for men and women who have always felt rejected. They have sensed from the beginning that they are a disappointment to their parents. The child felt like someone his parents wished were different, someone who caused them anguish and forced them to rush from place to place searching for a doctor who would cure him or an institution that would take him in. "I want to get married" ultimately means "I want to be happy." Because for all human beings, marriage is the symbol of happiness. In the Bible, the kingdom of God is portrayed as a wedding feast. It is a celebration.
Tenderness and sexuality
Love brings us into the world of tenderness. It is the opposite of loneliness. Love is someone who thinks of me. Even if he is thousands of miles away, he cares about me. Not about what I do, my abilities, my role, but about who I am, my person.
Yet as soon as we speak of this world of tenderness, it is immediately linked to sexuality—and by sexuality I mean genital sexuality. Adults surrounding handicapped people enter a universe of fear. It is truly beautiful, the encounter, the presence, the communion between two beings. But what if my daughter is very handicapped? What will happen?
The risk of pregnancy...
So what do we do? Is it possible to say, "No, you cannot marry, therefore love is forbidden to you"? That very love which brings presence, peace, joy... As a result, we construct places that are very protected, reassuring, especially for those who are there to protect! Or is it possible to let affective life blossom in its full depth with all that implies—tenderness, faithfulness, listening—without this requiring the use of sexual organs? This is all the more difficult to say and to live today, when the exercise of sexuality is considered the first condition of human fulfillment.
One thing is certain: the meeting of bodies, without this communion of persons in friendship, in tenderness, in faithfulness, does not lead to true fulfillment. It is a caricature of love.
Another thing is sure: the "wounded" person often has a very rich affective life, a sense of listening, dedication, self-offering, and is capable of not linking this affectivity with sexuality. Yesterday I met a girl in a wheelchair: despite her severe limitations, she was so attentive to others, to their needs, their suffering, their difficulties! She had understood that love does not lie in possessing the other, in desiring closeness to his body, his being, but in willing him to be true, happy, free.
Community: a place of peace and friendship
The deep needs of the human being—to be chosen, to meet a friend with whom to share, to have a home of one's own, to be at the center of a celebration now and then—these needs can find their fulfillment in community life.
For thirty years I have lived in a group home with about ten handicapped men. Our deep desire is that each person feels loved as a unique individual. We try to make sure that each one feels heard and understood in his own particular way.
In the community there are those particular gestures of tenderness, that particular smile, that outstretched hand. There are those moments when you are the hero of the celebration because it is your birthday, or because you have just returned after a time away.
When you have committed yourself completely for so many years, relationships take on a very deep level: there is genuine tenderness for the other, true respect, a great desire to see him grow and progress. And you do not lose your head over stumbles along the way, even if they involve sexuality.
But community does not solve the individual's problems any more than marriage solves those of a couple. These problems become different, that is all. One must not believe that the handicapped person living in community will be sheltered from every trial and will have only gratification. No—in each one you sense many sufferings, anxieties, worries. At the same time, however, you are caught up in a movement of life and hope.
At evening prayer or during Mass, I look at the faces of some of these men. Five years ago their expression was contracted and aggressive. Now they are calm, their eyes closed (they can stay that way for twenty minutes without moving). You can make out a certain smile on their lips, a peace... It is clear they are living an experience: that of feeling loved. It is a mysterious peace that does not come from the world, but from God. Just as Jesus said: "I give you peace, but not the peace the world gives." It is extraordinary to encounter certain men or women profoundly afflicted who have discovered that they are loved by God and that they truly have power over Him. In that moment you are no longer handicapped; you have discovered your reason for being, in spite of all kinds of suffering, in spite of the dark holes...
In the parable of the wedding feast, when Jesus tells of a king who prepared a great banquet and all the invited guests made excuses, He says to his servants: "Go out into the streets and roads and invite everyone you find—the lame, the poor, the crippled." To invite all the poor and weak of humanity to the wedding feast is an extraordinary thing.
- Jean Vanier, 1995
O. et L. n. 107