Let me introduce myself: I'm Giorgia, known at Fede e Luce as "Ciaccia," and I've been part of the Santa Croce group for many years. I'm sorry not to be with you at this gathering of brothers and sisters, so I wanted to write to you instead—to be present in spirit and to tell you my story.
My brother's name is Corrado. Some of you may already know him, but I want to tell you about him anyway. Corrado is twenty-five years old. When he was about four, he started to get sick. We're not entirely sure why, but after all this time we stopped asking. Corrado has serious personality problems. He suffers from epilepsy, which makes him hypersensitive and intellectually limited. His most obvious struggles are: an inability to tell reality from fantasy, a lack of independence, and often aggression—sometimes triggered by his illness, sometimes by simple whims.
He has taken up much of his parents' lives, and a smaller part of mine. He needs to be the center of attention and constantly hear that we love him.
My relationship with him has changed enormously over the years, and today we share a beautiful bond—though I owe so much of that to what our parents have given us both.
When I think back to when we were small, I don't remember much. The image I had of Corrado faded with time. I do remember his pulling my hair. I remember hiding behind the curtains. I remember running down the hallway to the bathroom door and locking myself in—then hearing him kick at it, trying to break through. But his worst problem was jealousy. An obsessive, suffocating jealousy. He couldn't bear it when my mother touched me, held me, or did anything with me. It unleashed an uncontrollable rage in him, which he would discharge as aggression toward whoever was near. Yet I don't remember ever feeling real hatred toward him. I said I hated him more than once, but not because of who I am—my temperament certainly helped—so much as because of all the love my parents were able to give me despite everything. Their words gave me peace, a calm that let me bear with Corrado then, and later, to love him without reservation.
Looking back now, I see that my real struggle wasn't that he was cruel. It was understanding why he was. What kept him from loving me the way I wanted to be loved. Only when I grew a bit older did I slowly begin to grasp his illness—though I learned never to call it "difference." Once I wanted to understand why he acted the way he did. Now I simply say I love him, and that's enough. I grew up believing that Corrado would learn to accept me once I accepted him, as he was, for whatever he could give me. Today I know it's more than simple love. What binds us now is an enormous complicity that shows itself in the most intimate moments of our lives. Corrado is a part of me that follows me wherever I go and will follow me everywhere. Of course, I'm not perfect at this. Sometimes I wish I could love him more, show him more clearly how much he means to me. But I'll admit—though not easily—that I've put my own needs first more than once, that my life has sometimes mattered more than his. Maybe that's right, or maybe it isn't. I don't have the strength to know. What I do know is that our paths will divide. But he is my only brother. And it's he who so many nights has waited up for me, and when I came home, opened one eye while keeping the other closed and said: "You're finally here."
- Giorgia, 1996