Evening is falling over my humid, silent garden. The shadows of dusk: another day gone. Once more, after so many times before, it is time to prepare for night.
How many thoughts crowd in when you put a "special" child to bed. Hours spent with him. So many sacrifices, so many things given up. So many difficult, restless nights. So many moments of tension and exhaustion.
I wish I could find some light to brighten your nights.
Does he sleep poorly? Can't keep himself clean? Restless before bed? Does he want you there beside him always? Up again and again? What can you do to help him settle into night? You'll find some answers in this issue. They'll help parents of younger children, disabled or not, and of teenagers too; but some suggestions will matter for older children as well.
It remains true, though, that certain tensions and sleeplessness stem, in some cases, from the atmosphere a boy or child breathes during the day and toward evening: noise too loud, quarrels in the home, television that excites too much; or anxieties that they "feel" with their special "radar"—the fears their parents, their mothers especially, carry within themselves.
There comes a moment when some parents, growing older, think almost automatically and again and again about tomorrow, which always seems so uncertain and without solutions. Without realizing it, they place on the face of their beloved child a kiss troubled and wrapped in anguish.
The young person senses this uncertainty, and over time, it is precisely at night that uncertainty begins to work its way into him too—unconsciously, of course.
Romolo, the twin brother of Remus, tells us something of his life today in this issue: they live together now in a small apartment, supported and helped by friends, by sisters, by priests. His words ought to give hope: not everyone will be able to live on their own as they do, but for everyone the way out of one's own family lies in solidarity and brotherhood. This is one of the pillars on which parents must learn to believe and lean with all their strength—by taking care to prepare this support thoughtfully for their own child.
Then there is the story of a group of parents from Carugate who came together to create, step by step, something that will bear fruit. Why not follow their example, instead of saying that no one thinks about this, that nothing is being done, that you are alone?
Courage, then—courage, hope, trust. These are the three dispositions of the heart we must always seek, everywhere, in every circumstance, to prepare ourselves calmly for life's night.
To whom, if not to God—to the one who said that our name, each of our names, is inscribed in the palm of his hand—should we turn our trusting prayer, as the shipwrecked sailor turns to the morning star: "Stay with us, Lord, for it is growing dark."
- Mariangela Bertolini, 1993