"I Knew He Was in Safe Hands"
I'm sending you a photo of my son Corrado with Roberto Ferrari, his supervisor at the Cooperative, a day center for disabled people. I would be grateful if you would publish it in "Ombre e Luci" as a token of gratitude to Roberto, who cared for him with such love for fifteen years. Corrado loved him so deeply that every morning when Roberto arrived in the van to pick him up, he would run happily to him without even saying goodbye to me—and that made me happy, because I knew he was in safe hands. My husband and I had made an agreement with Roberto: he would always look after Corrado, even if we were no longer here, "after we're gone." Sadly, Corrado left us alone after only four days of suffering, on April 27, 1998, and the doctors never discovered what illness he had. It was a tragedy for everyone who knew him, because his warm and good-natured character had won all their hearts. They all wept with us: the young people at the Cooperative, the staff, the conscientious objectors, and all our friends from the "Condivisione" and "Sicomoro" groups of Fede e Luce. With our pastor Lino Castellani, they prepared what became a "Festival Funeral"—a farewell to earth and departure to Paradise for Corrado, with bells ringing in celebration and singing the sacred hymns he loved so much, even as everyone wept. All of Fidenza gathered around us. The church was packed, and everyone embraced us with such tenderness and emotion that I stood in disbelief, unable to cry. In our home now there is a void that cannot be filled. The great love we gave him all his life, he returned to us a hundredfold.
Nella Campari
Long Live the Pomegranate
Today I received Ombre e Luci No. 63. The first thing that caught my eye was the cover—a pomegranate, beautiful, with autumn colors that bring to mind trees changing their leaves. Trees preparing to lose their foliage and ready themselves for winter, only to bring us new fruit in spring. Then I read the opening page, and as always, Mariangela manages to read the heart of each one of us. With few preliminaries, with few words, she touches us in our most vulnerable places. It's true—the further we go, the harder it becomes. Often the darkness closes in. Today a beautiful ray of sun arrived and warmed me with a profound joy: I am happy for Lina and Roberto and their whole family. Finally something has shifted. Many of us know their story, and how much struggle Lina has carried, especially with Roberto. I was deeply moved by Maria Irene Sarti, who with her sensitivity and professional skill helped Lina find some peace again. Thank you for this wonderful news.
Rita Ozzimo
From Honduras Before the Hurricane
I'm taking advantage of Silvia Poleggi's time in Quebec for the international gathering to send you a few words of greeting.
She gave me news of all of you. I learned that there are new young people, friends of our young people. Here in North America it's mostly the older folks, people of a certain age, who are drawn to Fede e Luce. You are blessed in Italy, Poland, the Balkans, and South America to have so many young people willing to be with our young people.
The Italian group makes its presence felt strongly at the gathering—it's wonderful to see.
I return to Honduras eager to share the good news of Fede e Luce with other parishes. We have only four communities. We meet once or twice a year because of the great distances. We write to each other every three months. Together we've formed a library. We visit the young people three times a month and bring them to Sunday Mass. Our friends are all under thirty. We sing and do various activities.
Thank you, Rome group, for planting in our hearts a love for Fede e Luce and its spirituality. I've made so many friends here in Quebec. This gathering has been a true grace for me.
Roberto Grimaldi - Apartado 100 Olanchito, Yoro Honduras
... and After the Hurricane
Here are excerpts from email messages from Robert Nolin, a friend of L'Arche and Fede e Luce in Honduras
Saturday, October 31, 1998
We had forty-eight hours of heavy rain in Tegucigalpa. The disaster is total. Rivers swept away hundreds of houses and all our bridges except one. It looks like a dozen atomic bombs fell on us. The area where I live may be the only one somewhat spared, and the only one with electricity. But there is no water. Entire streets have vanished. Thousands of people have no shelter from the weather. There are many dead, but we will never know the exact number, because they have been carried away by water or buried in mud. A tiny stream normally marks the boundary of my parish. Generally it is dry, but yesterday evening it became a monster—and transformed so quickly that no one could have predicted it. It completely destroyed and swept away the country's largest Toyota dealership, the Mercedes-Benz showroom, and the Alfa Romeo dealer. The cars were all carried away by the waters. A large two-story supermarket and a pharmaceutical factory were completely gutted. A kilometer from my house, toward the coast, "the monster" made three streets and their houses simply disappear. This is what happened in my neighborhood, but the same thing is happening all over the city. A terrifying disaster. This evening, the terrible Mitch finally left the country.
It is still raining, but the rain is lessening. The situation is even worse in the north, because the entire zone where half the population lives is now an immense lake. The airport at San Pedro Sula has disappeared under water. In some places the water reached the height of the lampposts. How will we rebuild?
That is the question haunting everyone. It breaks your heart to see the sadness of people, even those who suffered no damage. Everyone feels helpless and discouraged. Honduras must start from zero.
Sunday, November 1, 1998
The sun has returned, but what sadness! I was able to go see the El Prado neighborhood, on the edge of my parish. A dozen streets are buried under mud and debris. Almost the entire neighborhood. The water rose to the rooftops. Two couples have been found dead, but there is fear that more will be discovered in the sludge. It is becoming harder and harder to find food in the supermarkets. The damage is too great for the resources we have.
I still have before my eyes that beautiful young woman completely covered in mud, leaning against a wall and unable to stop her tears. She had worked all day trying to save something from her house, and now she realized her efforts would be for nothing. Every kind of supply is a problem: drinking water, food, electricity, gasoline. Radio Paz, the diocesan radio station, was the only one of the twelve radio stations in Choluteca that, thanks to its own generator, stayed on the air day and night.