Small but Decisive

«I've lived in this building for years, and our neighbors have watched my son Massimiliano grow up. They're all kind and understanding toward him, but the moment we step into the elevator together, they prefer to avoid it. Out of respect, maybe? Out of fear? They ask about him and his health only when he's not in the room. And yet Massi listens and responds in his own way—«he doesn't bite, he doesn't attack.» Nicla Bettazzi, one of our longtime contributors and mother of Massimiliano (now 35, with autism and epilepsy—«which is, frankly, brutal»), tells this story in a short video you can watch on the Ombre e Luci website and our social channels. She shares it to testify to the importance of working to make a magazine like ours known. Because what we lack—Bettazzi continues—«is familiarity with disability, getting to know it, in whatever way possible, even beginning within the pages of a magazine. That gap that seems unbridgeable can shrink. In this issue's feature, we meet women who have already bridged it. Each in her own calling, they live profoundly different experiences fully engaged in the world, witnessing an incarnate love we will celebrate in the Christmas approaching. It arrives alongside a jubilee year dedicated to hope—which Mariangela Bertoni described as «a small light that pierces the darkness we have all known,» a «sign of goodness» that each of us can carry and that helps us not lose our way. Even a small light, even a small gap to close, can change everything. Someone long ago closed a gap far more unimaginable than any of ours—becoming a child two thousand years ago—and kindled a light of hope that still reaches our hearts. May you carry our wish to cross even one small distance, the kind Massi covers every day in that elevator, with someone who understands. You'll see the light it makes.