Before speaking of the lesson in hope that parents have taught me, I should acknowledge their suffering. But I don't feel right speaking on their behalf about wounded parenthood. I prefer to let them tell their own story: what it was like to discover their child's disability, the solitude they felt deep within themselves, and the life they so often were forced to live.
It is a solitude, sometimes dramatic. It can last for years. To know its consequences, you would have to have lived through it yourself. It's hard to break free from this solitude, and many parents end up so resigned that change seems impossible.
There is the fear of new disappointments, the loss of trust, a guardedness toward others, an anger that pushes people away, the burden of suffering borne alone in silence and, at times, complete abandonment by the "others."
In these circumstances, an encounter is delicate, especially at first. Inviting someone to a celebration, a Mass, a Fede e Luce meeting presupposes that some trust has already been built, that time has been taken to say: "Come… Try… I will care for your child… I will be with you… I will come pick you up…"
And this is only possible if parents themselves have shown a willingness to trust, if they have taken the step "to see" whether what we, however clumsily, have tried to explain to them is true.
Once this step is taken, parents become bearers of hope for their friends and other parents.
Last June, the Fede e Luce groups in Marseille gathered for an entire day. We celebrated Mass. Some parents, coming for the first time, had stayed at the back of the chapel: "Our daughter will disturb people…" A mother invited them to come closer. She remembered how she had been welcomed just months before, and she knew that at Fede e Luce, no one disturbs anyone.
Luis Sankalé