Daniele Corrias died in the night of December 23-24, 2020, at Villa Alba in Fontenuova (Monterotondo), where he had lived for a year following the death of his mother Vittoria. Born September 16, 1973, in Rome, he had long been part of the Faith and Light community of San Roberto.
One morning I watched you wake. You opened your eyes. For a few seconds you lay still, thoughtful. Everything normal, just like anyone else, ready to greet the day. Then something shifted. Still lying down, your arms rose and settled into that strange, fixed position we'd grown used to seeing—slightly apart, bent before your face. In that moment it seemed to me you were sinking, once again, into the role that life had assigned you for every single day. Around you I saw the cage of autism rise up, almost represented by the static position of your arms.
I called you and still call you "friend"—but always with a sense of miserable inadequacy. A friend is present, and not just in thought. Present in concrete ways, when it matters. Faith and Light has often had to reckon with the word friendship.
Many times I've asked you to forgive my long absences. In halting words I've asked for your understanding. You always answered with the facts of a closeness I never took for granted, a participation in our time together. I felt that you were listening to me.
In these last months I often imagined the moment when I would see you again. I feared finding you physically changed and worn down in spirit. I hoped again for your forgiveness for this latest, prolonged absence—precisely when your life was most difficult. How could I explain practical obstacles to you? I dreamed of new walks, new lightheartedness with our friends, new closeness, new discoveries, new paths.
A few years ago I read this: "Disability is not a personal health condition. Disability is unreciprocated human relationships." How much more painfully true this is for autism, where relationships seem truly possible only in direct presence, without being able to fill the gaps of distance with the palliative of phone calls, messages, social media.
With a certain shame for my own limits, knowing little or nothing of this last year of yours, I think about how lost and alone you must have felt for so long, without the infinite and constant affection of your mother beside you anymore (forgive us too, Vittoria!), without seeing the people you loved. I think you crossed a long and monstrous desert, the darkest stretch of your already impossibly difficult journey in this world. A journey worthy of a hero. I hope that in these months someone—there where you were, or from Heaven—drew near to you and offered you some warmth and affection.
Dani, I have immense gratitude for the time we spent together. A whirlwind of small memories comes to mind—ones I hold as precious. It does me good now to hunt for them one by one in memory. I share them here thinking that many friends, finding themselves in these memories, will feel the same warmth or perhaps smile discovering something new. Who knows how many other memories will surface in the days ahead; who knows how many seeds you planted in the hearts of so many friends. The way you'd pick up a glass by slipping two fingers into it, but with such elegance. Your stealing food and drinks at every opportunity. That yogurt after each meal that you loved so much even though it was packed with so many medicines they would have felled a horse, yet for you it was routine.
Your detached gait, always on the tips of your toes, calves of steel, sometimes dragging one of your expensive orthopedic shoes continuously until the toe wore through, other times tapping your hand against walls and furniture as if testing their solidity. Your incredible balance on any path, despite that unstable footing.
The strange position of your left hand fixed above your forehead, fingers held just so: so unnatural, always identical. The index finger of your right hand with which you'd roll endlessly that same little curl of hair on your forehead, always the same one, until they cut it short to keep you from hurting yourself. Those strange repetitive movements that caused you so many physical problems—the calluses on your hands, or that sore on your chin that came once only because you kept running the back of your hand across it; the distraction and joy of a vacation with friends proved an infallible cure for that wound and made you forget that incomprehensible habit.
The way you'd offer your cheek on request or of your own accord to receive a kiss from whichever friend was near—preferably a female friend. The days when mysteriously you'd try to squeeze our hands as hard as you could or scratch us with your thumbnail until it hurt, sometimes in silence, other times looking us in the eye or even laughing: I still remember how the hydrogen peroxide would sizzle that evening on all those small wounds.
Your sudden runs with arms raised, real bursts of speed accompanied by that prolonged cry that sounded like a siren—we always felt it was your way of showing enthusiasm and freedom. It was a real pleasure to watch you run, especially in the safe expanse of the big lawns at Bicoca; less so when it happened on the street with people frozen in place. The laughter you'd sometimes let loose—quick, half-suppressed chuckles other times full and loud—repeating the same sound over and over while your face lit up. What magical moments!
The silent dawns we'd see walking together around the houses where we stayed, and the miles we'd cover from morning to evening. Our paths always circling back to the kitchen. The walks along the seashore near Rome; that time you'd ask for a kiss every five steps.
The jumps and laughter you'd sometimes let out in the pool after we'd won your reluctance to get in the water. The hours of afternoon naps on a beach vacation when we'd walked back and forth countless times along a few meters of the same jetty while the others rested. The look you gave me that day at the sea after you'd gotten up from the brutal wave that had knocked us both to the bottom. The other telling look you shot me that time you fell in the shower because of a not-too-clever choice I made in setting up the platform.
Those rare and precious times when you'd place your eyes directly in ours—you whose gaze was always so elusive and inscrutable. You did it for an entire day the day after visiting the Frasassi Caves so many, many years ago. Who could forget? That day you'd repeatedly block us and look straight ahead, fixed.
The many masses we attended in our own way, wandering in and out of churches. That time during a summer mass when you decided to lie down in the center aisle to feel the cool marble against your back, drawing curious, empathetic, or disdainful glances. That other time you kept the Eucharist resting—or more accurately, stuck—on your tongue for many long seconds, unable to decide whether to put it in your mouth (seized by panic, I made a somewhat delicate but impeccable sacrifice to resolve the situation before the Eucharistic minister).
The exhaustion of certain difficult nights when sleep seemed impossible. You getting up repeatedly. The need to hide everything to prevent unfortunate accidents. The times I'd find you at night in the bathroom trying to eat toothpaste. Your hand, spread wide, that in difficult moments we'd have to stop before it struck your forehead repeatedly until it turned purple—sometimes when you seemed clearly distressed, other times when you appeared happy and peaceful, even we couldn't understand why.
The bursts of rage you'd sometimes let out, spreading and extending your arms—only you know why. That state of nervousness I'd attributed to you in the last days of our retreats, which perhaps was more mine than yours.
The tears I saw fall silently down your cheeks at least a couple of times as we took you home at the end of our vacations. You walking into the house and heading toward your rooms to resume, heroically, your ordinary life, almost without saying goodbye to your mother who received you with love, or to us chasing after you for one last kiss.
The emotion of so many friends who, over time, discovered who you are—just as I did. Thank you for every moment spent together! Dani, stay close to us from up there; wait for us still.
