What a joy to receive your letter full of unchanged affection for your son or daughter portrayed in the photograph you sent us with great care.
What a joy to see the face of Augusta, known first among many, on my first pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1968! Hearing her voice on the phone, still the same as it was then, of her father and mother. Do you remember Luigi, when sitting at the table to break the embarrassment of a first meeting with other parents like us, in front of the famous French soupe, you exclaimed: “Ma’am would you like two spaghetti with garlic and oil?”
Thus began the adventure of Faith and Light: in Lourdes, always in Lourdes, for years we discovered the loneliness, tears, and suffering of many parents. We became friends with someone we met almost by chance. Looking at your little face, Gianni, I thought back with sweet Nostalgia to my meeting in Abano with your mother: on the bicycle, little brother on the parcel carrier, you in the seat on the handlebars; she carried you around like that! She stopped, we talked about her and her smiling eyes entered my heart like a strong message: don’t leave us alone! She, you know, reminded me that cycling with three people on board is not easy! It takes strength, perseverance, courage and determination. She gave me the coordinates to invent Faith and Light, which at the beginning was a manufactured letter, to 5, to 6, then 10…mothers and fathers who needed to feel “normal”, desired as they were to live life not crushed, not sad, not withdrawn into themselves.
The letter turned into “together”. The title of that mimeograph which lasted from ‘75 to ‘83 was already a good program. And together we felt the strength to found Faith and LIght, because the families had become around 200 and we couldn’t stop any longer. Many friends had arrived from Faith and Light and otherwise; and when Sabinas father and his extended family offered us the little apartment for free- where we still are- we threw ourselves with an open heart into a job that we didn’t know how to do, but which with the help of many writers, of some more competent friends (Nicole, Sergio) and above all the Lord, we registered our Faith and Light at the Rome Court on January 24, 1983.
How Could We Back out?
Regarding your photos, not all from ‘83, but all of the parents who sent their contribution in ‘83 renewing it for 24 years today in 2007!
I would like to tell an anecdote about each of you; each of your photographs brought to mind episodes, meetings, camping, trips, pilgrimages, singing, pizzas, crying (even those), and laughter. Looking at your faces, which have become so close despite the distances, despite the farewells given to many friends who look at us smiling from heaven, I can only do one thing: sing a thank you in a full voice, so that it reaches each of you around italy, a profound thank you because without just one of all of you and all of those who are added over the years, Faith and Light would not have existed or be on of the many magazines that easily become extinct.
With you as protagonists and our little great masters, Faith and Light has only one great advantage: that of making us feel like “one big family” together.
