An old friend named Anna called asking to meet urgently. I could hear the anguish in her voice.
Tomorrow she has to make a decision that will break her heart: whether to say yes or no to letting Michele move into a residential community for adults with intellectual disabilities. He'd been on the waiting list for three years. Now a place has finally opened up. The director is proposing a trial week starting next week. Anna should be relieved. Instead she's torn apart by dread.
Michele is forty years old. He has never left home. After his father died, Michele became his mother's consolation—despite the difficulties, despite the pain. His presence overflows with affection. His gestures are often clumsy. But his desire to be helpful is truly moving: the way he carries a plate from the kitchen so his mother won't have to get up. Sometimes he sulks or flares up in anger, but it passes quickly. Every evening, without fail, he takes the lead: "Now it's time to pray!" He lights a candle. Often he starts with ten Hail Marys, then shares his intentions. Anna adds her own, but never the one closest to her heart: what will happen to Michele when she's gone? This question has haunted her for years. Since the day he was born, really.
As long as we're alive, we'll love him. But what becomes of him after we die?
When his parents first learned of his disability, the question arose at once: "As long as we're alive, we'll love him. But what becomes of him after we die?" A thousand worries crush Anna's heart. If she accepts his leaving now, Michele will step into an unknown world. How will he react? He's so sensitive. Will the staff understand his words, his gestures—the ones only Anna can truly read? What if the others mock him or push him around? And when he comes home just once a month, will he be able to express what hurts, what confuses him?
Yet keeping Michele at home leads nowhere. If Anna refuses to accept this separation now, she only postpones an inevitable break—one that will be far more damaging because it will come without warning or preparation. Moreover, Anna knows the truth that's hardest to admit: she needs Michele more than he needs her.
A new life in the community might open horizons Michele can't even imagine now. Jesus said, "A man will leave his father and mother." Could we apply those words to Michele as well? He is a man—forty years old. To what extent is Anna still treating him like a child? If Michele left home, perhaps he would grow into greater maturity.
- Read also: How do we prepare for separation? Reflections on what comes after
As our conversation stretches on—through silences, moments of doubt, sudden reversals—a decision begins to take shape: they must at least try it, and everything must happen under the best possible conditions.
"Maybe there's something better to do than cry," Anna says at one point. Michele needs to adjust gradually to this new and difficult step. And there's another concern: he might lose his spiritual anchor. How can Anna help him find support for a life of faith—friends who will help him join a parish community, a prayer group, a movement of Christian life?
Anna left me then. This evening she'll be alone. It will be hard for her to hold firm in her wavering decision, to find peace, and to pass that peace on to Michele.
A Prayer for Letting Go
"Mary, you who believed in the Lord's words, grant Anna the grace of trust.
You watched your son leave home, saw him abandon the house forever, and did nothing to hold him back—because you knew he was walking the path for which he was born.
You encouraged him and held him steady in that separation, which ended your daily life together.
But a new bond took root between you, an invisible union that grew ever deeper.
Mary, Jesus asked you to become mother to all of us.
Walk with Anna. Give her the tenderness and hope of your heart.
Watch over Michele, one of the most fragile of your children, the beloved son of the Father."
Marie-Hélène Mathieu
(O. et L. n. 136)