We were ten children. Mariangela was the fourth, after two boys and a girl. I came next, so we spent our childhood and teenage years in close contact. Now, thinking back across so many years, I see her as she was then: a vital presence, active, engaged, curious about everything. Active in our games, our competitions, our adventures across the meadows (we were living in the countryside, displaced from the city), but also—unlike me—more attuned to the adult world. She was curious about what the grown-ups were doing, quick to catch their conversations, fascinated by relationships between people "older" than us, always trying to understand even what they weren't saying in front of us…
It was childish curiosity, a girl's nosiness (I used to tease her about it), but also—I understood this later—genuine interest. She wanted to be drawn into the problems of adult life. And so she was always the first and most able to help, organize, and solve the small daily problems that my mother faced with so many children and relatives around her. Our mother often turned to Mariangela for help. Another striking quality was her refusal to give herself completely to our most fantastical games. She'd call them childish with a hint of superiority. She preferred activities closer to the real world: observing closely, exploring, trying new things.
A Journey of Her Own Making
I remember later, when we were a bit older, a trip she organized entirely herself: from our village in the Veneto, by coach and prewar trains, all the way to San Candido! Mariangela and I were about thirteen, and we brought along our brother, barely seven. I don't know how our mother allowed it—perhaps because of the trust Mariangela inspired in her. It was a surreal journey. We arrived at dusk, in autumn cold, at the rectory of an utterly bewildered Austrian canon. His ninety-year-old housekeeper, even more bewildered, offered us an enormous canopied bed and milk and bread for dinner. Neither of them spoke Italian, let alone us with German!
I think they believed they were putting up three little Romani children for the night. And those were our only contacts, because the Italian nun who was supposed to meet us had left the day before. This tells you something about my sister's initiative. We made our way back on foot along the railroad for a long stretch because we'd run out of money for the full journey. We'd agreed together to buy ourselves a pastry before leaving San Candido.
During the War
In the winter of 1944, unable to attend middle school in the nearby town because of the mounting danger of bombing and fighting between partisans and Germans, Mariangela decided, with our mother's agreement, to learn to sew.
Her teacher was a skilled woman from the village. Besides working as a seamstress, she shared with her brother, the sacristan, the care and cleaning of the church and helped the priest with everything else. Mariangela threw herself into these tasks as well. She even learned to ring the church bells, pulling heavy ropes that, if gripped firmly, would lift you off the ground until your head nearly touched the ceiling of the bell chamber—it was amazing!
That year, when she was twelve, she happened to accompany the priest to bless the bodies of four German soldiers killed during the retreat (in an air raid) and abandoned near the cemetery. She witnessed and felt many other things in that final cruel year of the war. All sorts of people passed through the seamstress-sacristan's kitchen, and Mariangela, as she said, felt at home there. She felt useful and active, a grown-up among grown-ups.
School and Beyond
The following year was dark. The convent school we attended as boarders was cold and unwelcoming. The food was scarce, personal cleanliness barely mattered, the nuns were distant and severe, obsessed with fear of sin and the demands of duty, humility, modesty. I was younger and less aware, so I simply survived. For Mariangela, it was total war.
She couldn't bear any of it—she hated the nuns, the schoolwork, the cold, the hypocritical girls. After two failed escape attempts, we won our freedom. By Easter we were home, and we finished the school year triumphantly as day students, commuting by horse and carriage!
And once the war ended, we moved to Rome. For Mariangela came the gymnasium and liceo years at the Nazareth Institute—generally peaceful years, though the sudden death of our father at only forty-six forced all of us older siblings to "stand with" our mother and help her through every hardship and protect our younger brothers and sisters. Only this kept us from drowning in grief and absolute sorrow.
No Ifs or Buts
I think those were the years when Mariangela's personality began to come into focus. The Nazareth Institute was where she trained, where for the first time she revealed to herself and others her particular gifts, abilities, and longings. She studied what was necessary, discovered which subjects captured her interest and which caused her pain, which teachers she loved and which she…disliked. Like everyone.
But above all, she formed her first great friendships with some of her classmates and several nuns—friendships that lasted her entire life and with whom, in Chicca's early years, she found her truest support. She discovered her own power to bring people together through friendship and a shared purpose, learned the meaning of keeping a commitment, the joy of taking action for something that mattered, the happiness of enjoying simple, beautiful things together—eating as a group, preparing a party, putting on a play. And she also learned what to fear and refuse in daily life, once and for all, no ifs or buts.
A rough list, written in words she might have used then, could look like this: cruelty toward those already in difficulty; the hollow arrogance of the rich, the beautiful, the powerful; refusing to ever take a stand, sitting on the sidelines and then attacking whoever made a mistake; the lack of passion, idleness, wasting time uselessly. I can't think of anything else right now.
Modest Sandwiches
She also had her first experience with helping others. With a courageous nun, we middle-school girls brought packages of food and clothes to war refugees still living in great poverty at the Pianciani school in Piazza Risorgimento. It was then that Mariangela became ashamed of her overstuffed sandwiches. Here's what happened: we could offer the snacks we brought from home to the refugee children. One day, the supervising nun used the filling from Mariangela's sandwich to make three sandwiches! Such waste in the face of such poverty! The nun was making a point. The shame cut so deep that Mariangela never forgot it. When she got home, she made a scene with whoever had packed her snack. From that day on, she made her own sandwiches—modest ones.
And then came university years—though Mariangela rarely attended as a student, since she had to work and earn money. But in her free time, she was a passionate volunteer for the university chaplain of those years: Don Gian Maria Rotondi, a remarkable priest whose open mind matched the openness of his heart, a generous friend who introduced us to Danilo Dolci and Don Milani…at considerable risk to himself.
Working with Don Gian Maria, Mariangela had to coordinate, organize, energize, establish the first "alternative" masses and retreat days, improvise cheap camping trips and arctic weeks in freezing mountain huts. She became a beacon, a light at the end of the tunnel for the penniless students living away from home who turned to the CAU (University Assistance Center for out-of-town students). There, Mariangela, installed as a jack-of-all-trades secretary (with a salary), with her welcoming smile and the flash of her blue eyes, distributed meal vouchers, mimeographed notes, words of comfort, advice for upcoming exams. Naturally, she became the center of constant courtship, infatuations, near-engagements!
Alternative Values
Her graduation day came, though we barely celebrated it. Our mother had also gone to Heaven by then, and there was less and less room for celebrations. Then she got a teaching position at the gymnasium of the Nazareth Institute, where, besides preparing her students excellently in literature, she poured out her passion and her…alternative values! "I can't stand the ones who only ever get top grades…who think about nothing but studying…" (she'd say to us).
"But don't you see that working in groups is better and more useful, even if you chat a bit?" (she'd say to them). And again: "There are so many things to do on Saturday and Sunday besides going out with your mother shopping or to silly parties. Look around you. Read." (naturally to them). "Don't think you're something special just because you're pretty and well-dressed. No one is without faults. There are people of modest appearance who are worth far more than you in every way!" (to the pretty girls in the class).
She was impetuous, sometimes disconcerting, but entertaining, completely unconventional, passionate. I don't think any of her students ever forgot her, and many still feel deep affection and gratitude for her today.
In December 1961 Mariangela married Professor Paolo Bertolini, and two years later Francesca (Chicca) was born. But I won't speak of this. I'm not equal to it, and besides, she already did—in the way we all know and for which we must be grateful, forever. I also won't say anything about her life in Faith and Light, her work, her great commitment to the cause of disability. So much has already been told, and testimonies keep coming.
I only want to remember, with tenderness and pride, one day from so many years ago. In her beloved garden, she told me about Lourdes, about Jean Vanier, about Marie Helene, about Friquette, a courageous mother who had rekindled a light in her heart. She spoke of this light and powerful thread that she and Paolo wanted to begin weaving in Italy as well—among parents of disabled children—and she wondered how they might reach them. So we two, I as her eternal supporter, thought of a simple, humble mimeographed sheet that would reach with her first words of love and solidarity to so many parents who were waiting for it without knowing it.
And we two decided that mimeographed sheet would be called "TOGETHER"!
Tea Mazzarotto, 2014