We were the ones in flowered skirts and wooden clogs, with overstuffed backpacks and a fierce belief in equality between men and women, in self-determination, and so much more. When my friend Marta asked me to work with her as an assistant at a printing workshop for what they called "intellectually gifted" young people — organized by the father of one of the boys, who was a printer — I said yes immediately. It was my first real encounter with disability: Genoa, spring 1977. I was twenty-eight.
There were about a dozen teenagers with what I now understand were autistic traits, though neither Marta nor I had any idea what their struggles were at the time. No doctors came. We saw the families only when they dropped the boys off or picked them up. The printer-father taught them to use the machinery. Marta and I came up with the idea of running a self-managed cafeteria: we'd shop together, cook, set the table, eat well, clean up, get everything ready for the next day.
It didn't last long for various reasons, but for me — and not only me — it was the true first step toward understanding that the fight for equal opportunity began right there.
Then came twelve important years. The flowered skirts were still around, but more often jeans now — easier for catching trains and buses, arriving at remote schools. So much work, so much study, so much struggle, but mostly the joy of feeling my life in my own hands.
Then came the discovery that would change everything: the child I was carrying would have problems.
Then came the discovery that would change everything: the child I was carrying would have problems.Then came the discovery that would change everything: the child I was carrying would have problems. Moments too difficult even to describe, too much loneliness, and the pointless pressure from others in my life who saw only one choice. For me, it was unthinkable — a choice I could not make.
He was born, beautiful. Such joy, such panic, deep sighs, some hope, then confirmation: yes, what they had feared was true.
Delays in walking, in speaking, trips seeking miracle cures, innovative rehabilitation techniques, endless advice from others, and finally — liberating, day by day — the simple, hard-won understanding that a son is simply, sometimes exhaustingly, a son. I wept thinking about how he might not have been here.
This insight was hard to share. Too many prejudices surrounded it. But it awakened in me a hunger for deeper spirituality, for new reference points, for new tools to decode and relate to reality itself.
So I came back to the Church. Four intense years followed — walking the faith with others, reading together, deep moments, the encounter with the Gospel.
In practice, though, there was little real welcome. Or none at all. During spiritual retreats, I had to arrange a separate babysitter. At a Catholic preschool, they would not accept him unless I paid tuition and hired a personal aide. We were once asked to leave Mass because my son was disturbing others.
One day a young friend asked if he could take my son to Fede e Luce
One day a young friend asked if he could take my son to Fede e Luce.Explaining Fede e Luce is simple: there, Massimiliano is a friend who receives and gives friendship. He is Massimiliano, period. Not defined by me or my anxieties. It is his right to a life of real quality. A turning point from which there was no going back. Finally, an answer.
It was back in the days of flowered skirts and wooden clogs that I first understood what welcome truly means. When my mother-in-law could no longer live alone, she did not go to my husband. I did not even hesitate: she came to me. People looked at me as though I were strange. But opening my home felt like the most natural thing in the world. She is gone now, and we miss her. We miss her every day.
I still like to think that the bond we shared — deep affection, respect, complicity, tenderness, laughter — grew from that distant movement for emancipation, emancipation from rivalry. There was no love to be divided between us. Only a desire to build something together.