Ombre e Luci Encounters...
We recently marked an anniversary we would gladly have skipped: the total lockdown ordered on March 9, 2020, to contain COVID-19. Since then, a season of grief, fear, new hardships, and old struggles. Any accounting is premature — the end still seems distant — but we want to share with you two stories tied to pandemic and disability, expressions of our deep conviction that we can only emerge from difficulty together. The first tells how the internet itself helped people network. Serena Sillitto, writing from Rome, describes "a small great miracle of love among strangers (…) that bloomed in the chat rooms on my phone." The other story comes from Padua: Luciana Spigolon, who lives with her brothers Giorgio and Cristina — both with severe disabilities — recounts the time when, because of the virus and "social and community isolation," she had to place them in a residential care home for adults for several months. An extraordinarily difficult time, as you will read, but — as Luciana writes — "after suffering, there is always resurrection."
Book of the Month
Despite pages that sometimes feel overly spare in style — "a denunciation that tends to overlook (…) essential complexity" — this month's pick is The Forgotten: Those Who Did Not Recover After the Pandemic, edited by Luca Leone and Riccardo Noury. Cristina Tersigni introduces us to this collective project, which addresses the many vulnerabilities exposed by COVID-19 (from children to the elderly, from people with disabilities to unaccompanied migrant minors, from exploited farmworkers to the homeless…). The pandemic, she notes, "only made visible a weakness we already knew existed." A book that helps "give flesh and bone to those who risked, and risk, surviving at best as nothing more than ghosts."
In the Next Issue of Ombre e Luci
The new issue of Ombre e Luci will soon arrive at subscribers' homes — the first of the year. A rich, vibrant journey across space and time. It opens — thanks to author Eliane Brum and publisher Sellerio — with the beautiful story of Eva Rodrigues, a Black Brazilian woman with a disability who fought her whole life to shed the image of victim that society had fashioned for its convenience (excerpted from The Lives No One Sees). From Brazil we move to Ponte Lambro, where Carlo Maria Fornari founded Casa di Dario, a community project for life after parental care, inspired by the priest Dario Madaschi, who died too young. After passing through Puglia — meeting, through Vito Giannulo's account, Eufemia Giuliani, a seventy-four-year-old mother of three children with disabilities who continues cheerfully to needle the Almighty — we travel north to Great Britain, where the royals never leave the headlines. Enrica Riera examines the story, alluded to in the series The Crown, of Katherine and Nerissa Bowes-Lyon, first cousins of Queen Elizabeth, locked away and "forgotten" in an institution because they were on the autism spectrum. A case that fits neatly within the rich focus on the history of disability compiled by Giulia Galeotti, beginning with a middle-school exam essay by Ludovica, granddaughter of one of our devoted readers. Stories across space and time, then, to hear those lives and narratives "so often forgotten and deliberately excluded," as Cristina Tersigni writes in the editorial. "To draw near to them is to heal and redeem, finally together, our shared humanity — invisibly fragile and wounded."
Ages 0–13
After returning home from a Faith and Light gathering in January 2020, Glauco Rizzo (three years and several months old) made this drawing. May it be a good omen!
Benedetta's Blog
Gianciotto Malatesta and the Math That Adds Up
Gianciotto Malatesta really gets on my nerves. But I don't understand this whole story about the in-laws Paolo and Francesca one bit. All I know is they're all dead. Read on…
Post of the Month
Honestly, it's not even funny. It means a person who's been doing politics for years knows nothing about disability, has never listened to the most vulnerable, ignores the daily reality of a huge portion of the population… #zaia https://t.co/Cd3wzg9ORD
— Ombre e Luci (@Ombre_Luci) March 12, 2021
Faith and Light Life
From February 26 to 28, Keep the Flame Alive took place — an international Faith and Light gathering that brought together more than two hundred people from over fifty countries online. "Bringing together people from every corner of the world," Angela Grassi explains, "in the same desire to welcome the other as they are — that is Faith and Light's miracle." Over three days of prayer and celebration, there was time for exchange: one such moment was led by Fabio.
Our reporter Nora also attended the closing event and wanted to share her experience, which she found "moving — it would be wonderful if everyone could take part, because it gives you real strength."
Before we go, we're delighted to present the Italian edition of the booklet Living the Essential in Faith and Light, which tells how communities around the world, through creativity and friendship, lived through this year of pandemic.
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