We're packing up to spend Easter with friends. After two days of preparation—my mind crowded with everything I need to take, leave behind, pack into a suitcase, all the equipment—we're finally ready to go. Back and forth inside the house and out to the courtyard where the van sits waiting, loaded with whatever we'll need; and somehow I always forget something anyway. Every time I organize a trip with Giorgio and Cristina, I ask myself whether it's really necessary, whether it's worth the effort—all the worry, all the packing, just to be away a few days when I could stay home in peace.
But then, thank goodness, determination wins out. I want to spend time with friends who welcome us, understand us, and stand with us. They know I'll arrive exhausted, so they greet me with open hands ready to help. Even our day trips into the mountains, just the three of us, are worth the effort—though I'll save that story for another time.
Somewhere I read that we siblings of people with disabilities are invisible angels to our families. We matter deeply—both to our parents and to our brother or sister with the disability. We grow up in a world of responsibility, fragility, sacrifice, care, but also rebellion, resentment, jealousy.
Invisible angels: I love that word for us.
Back to the original question: vacations. I think about my own story, my family. Until the 1990s, nobody thought about vacations or holidays. You worked constantly, lived off your labor. We were a poor family with almost no resources. Besides, taking a vacation with children in wheelchairs was impossible—the transport, the logistics, finding an accessible place we knew nothing about. But mainly we lived completely closed off from the world. My brothers never left home except for doctor's appointments or therapy, and even those visits were enormously difficult. In 1989 I finished my degree in professional education; that program opened my eyes. My work experience, my hunger to learn, my timid curiosity about practical possibilities—it all pushed me to look beyond what we knew.
In 1991 I stumbled, by chance, on a large facility: Villa Gregoriana in Auronzo di Cadore. It seemed like the perfect answer—a place where I could take my brothers on vacation. Looking back, I'm amazed at how I pulled it off.
After asking the facility if we could try a short stay, I marched in with my parents, determined: "I'm taking Giorgio and Cristina to the mountains." They were stunned. Disbelieving, maybe shaken. I packed everything—threw together whatever I could find that looked like luggage. We still had rigid wheelchairs that had to be taken apart piece by piece, not practical for travel at all.
Driven by my mission, I set things in motion, though my head was full of questions: Will we manage? Can I do this? How will it go for them?
Seeing my determination, my father grew very worried. He told my mother, "You'd better go with her—she's crazy!" But I was resolved to go even alone if I had to.
So I loaded the roof rack on my little Uno, stuffed it with duffel bags, strapped the wheelchairs to the roof, lifted Giorgio and Cristina into the back seats, and my mother climbed in beside them—anxious but there. We drove off toward a new adventure. My father watched us with grave concern, tears marking his face.
That first vacation away from home was the beginning of a whole new life—a search for new encounters, new relationships, new possibilities for my brothers, and for my parents too. I can say that in 1991 I was, in that moment, an invisible angel, bringing something new to life. It was the beginning of something that changed our family forever. How many times have you been an invisible angel to your sibling with a disability, or to your parents?