When I first came to Fede e Luce, what struck me most was the sight of so many severely disabled young people—wholly or almost wholly dependent on us volunteers. Their needs were immediate and pressing: they had to be fed, dressed, corrected, carried. This world of necessity and unfamiliar routines hit us "normal" people right away. It was natural that it caught our attention.
But as time went on, as I spent more weeks with the groups, I began to see a different reality. There were other young people and adults whose struggles ran much deeper than physical need. I noticed the boy sitting alone on the edge of things, or another kicking a ball halfheartedly—self-sufficient young people, many of them studying or working, who seemed lucky compared to those in wheelchairs or those who had to be fed at every meal. Yet they were often the ones who left our short celebrations or our Sunday afternoons at the Nazareth feeling empty. The games and songs could amuse them for a while, even satisfy them briefly. But they were searching for something more: a real friendship, a deep one, something that lasted beyond those few hours together in the group. The words "friend" and "friendship" came up again and again in what they said to us.
Many of them, as I've said, did have the chance to go to school or work—attitudes were slowly changing for the better about including them. Yet they lived in a kind of limbo. They had their families' affection, their relatives' care. But they were also adults, nearly independent. That wasn't enough anymore.
What they wanted were friends they could visit, go out with, joke around with—friends with whom they could live like anyone else. Without such friendships, their jobs and schooling seemed almost pointless. This is what lay behind the questions we heard so often: "Will you come see me?" "When can we get pizza together?" Behind those simple words, we didn't always realize, there were stories of real longing.
Carlo Colosimo, 1979