Annamaria

Who is our welcome aimed at? Definitely people in difficulty but, being basically a meeting place, it is aimed at both volunteers who provide their service and guests. And there, where the encounter is true, it becomes difficult to define who helps whom. Deep relationships were born between volunteers, between volunteers and people hosted, between guests.

My friendship with Annamaria began twenty years ago: I was an inexperienced girl, at the beginning of my journey in the fraternity, she was an established woman, a company manager who wanted to be able to serve people in difficulty. I've always looked at her with respect and admiration, seeing in her a complete, defined woman with a thousand interests in which, however, she didn't get lost. In everything she lived and did, from the nights in hospitality to the cleaning of a room, to the concert at the Regio, she was always and simply Annamaria. A woman of faith, free, few words, no gossip, always present, especially when there was more need. Her arrival was recognizable with her eyes closed, announced by the sound of her heels, and by a relaxed and determined step. She wore everything with ease and ease. Her look – which could come across as a little eccentric – was the complement of her person.

As a friend wrote of her, "she seemed to age the other way around our rockiest volunteer." In the hospital, when she came for chemo, her attitude did not make her a victim of the disease, she brought courage and good humor to patients and nurses. It took me a few months before I was able to sort through my thoughts and emotions and write about her. The age difference has never been a problem between us. A glance was enough to understand each other. Annamaria knew how to live every moment of her life, even the most tiring ones while alive. She listened to the disease, to what it had to say, she learned to know her alphabet and to dialogue with her. You showed me how life can always be life, how to live and how to die with dignity, offering benevolence and respect to everything and everyone. Missing you Annamaria, missing your unique way of being in the world, your passion, your energy, your youth. I thank the Lord for having met you and for having had the gift of living with you moments of truth and sweetness that will remain with me forever.


Simona Pagani
NP February 2023