I went on several camping trips with Francesco. He was the one in charge; I stayed with Sabina. But he never left her alone for more than five minutes. Talking to her, making her laugh, holding her close—it mattered more than anything else. That's how we learned that she didn't just need to be cared for. She could be happy if someone gave her real attention. Any parent knows this.
Every night at camp, after days packed with work and adventure and mishap, someone had to stay up late to take Sabina out for her final bathroom break. We'd sometimes wait until two or three in the morning. Sleep became a luxury we had to negotiate.
The rest of us could work out a schedule, trade shifts, do whatever we wanted. But there was no getting Francesco to bed. It wasn't that he didn't trust us. Those hours were as much a part of his life as any other, and he wasn't going to skip them. For years now, he'd been sleeping very little. This was his way of being a father. And he enjoyed staying up to talk with whoever else was awake. So most nights, three or four of us would be keeping watch during those bathroom hours.
Those nights became important to me too. In the silence, in the empty kitchen of the parish house, we'd sit and talk. We'd share pieces of ourselves, tell stories about the camp, learn who each other really was. When exhaustion and silence and waiting pulled us together, that's when friendship happened. That's when we revealed ourselves, laughed, and sometimes—if Sabina's bathroom trips were particularly slow—made a pot of spaghetti.
During those nights, I began to understand who stood behind the person we saw each day: someone who never took himself too seriously, never expected to be the center of attention, never made his own needs the focus. It was an excellent way to be "in charge" without making anyone feel the weight of it.
We learned from him how to keep a sense of proportion: the greatness of God's love for us and our small daily realities—like his: meals, bathroom breaks, singing or playing games with everyone, a swim in the sea, pasta with clams, a minibus trip with those slightly rough-around-the-edges friends of his, the ones who raised eyebrows in polite company.
Nothing to get a swollen head about.
The beautiful thing was that he lived these modest things as if they were the only ones in the world worth his complete devotion. A mother or father knows what it means to care for a child who is no longer small, and how these humble acts aren't just gestures—they are life itself.
Nothing to brag about, though. Nothing that makes it into the history books.
During those bathroom hours, I grasped what Francesco truly took seriously: that God is God, and He shows Himself in the smallest ones. To love them and serve them with humility is to do His will. To make yourself small alongside them—that is the most "serious" thing in life. A deliberate choice.
Francesco understood that playing with Sabina, feeding her, watching over her at night—these were "important" things, the role the Lord had given him. His part in God's design.
Some people live their "hours of glory" and become nothing more than a page in a history book. Some live their "hours of power" and fade to a few photographs in a newspaper. And some live their "bathroom hours" and remain in our hearts as an example that never ends. And Francesco doesn't feel too important even now that Heaven holds him in a seat far more "prestigious" than the one he had here with us.
- Anna Cece
