Pleasure, my name is love

I met her when she was 14, in the hospital, in the room where my daughter had been hospitalized for a very painful gastritis. She was often forced to spend hours alone, without a family member ready to comfort her in times of need, or with a guardian from the institution where she had usually lived for more than four years. Social services had removed her from her family nest because her father and brother beat her, and often even under the influence of drugs they used and sold. Luna was a cut flower.

From the day my wife and I met her, something very special was born between us, but at that moment it wasn't so obvious. After Bianca's discharge from hospital, we began sharing many days with Luna, which helped us to get to know each other better: a weekend at our house, a little vacation, an afternoon in the garden talking. Simple moments, but rich in that clear love that does not fear judgments.

Luna quickly became part of the family, so much so that Bianca started calling her older sister, perhaps recognizing her more experience than her. When she turned 18 the institution she was in wanted to see us, and with the superficiality with which a non-fragile package can be treated, they informed us that their work with Luna was finished and that they would have thrown her in the middle to the street. My wife and I have thought a lot about what to do to try to avoid that Luna, once out, does not risk ending up in unpleasant situations. In fact, the prerequisites were all there because: she made joints, she had no money, no job, no house, and she was little more than a little girl deprived of all those rules, habits, feelings, necessary to grow an adult aware and respectful. So, we decided that we would follow her, but without making her feel deprived of her freedom and ready to pick it up and help her in times of need.

Initially it was difficult, Luna's scars conditioned her attitudes but then, for a long time, everything went well: Luna started studying again, even with the help of my wife, and in the meantime she was trying to support herself. The relationship with my family became more and more intimate, heartfelt, full of trust and she showed maturity, feeling and even commitment. But often, when the road looks downhill and runs fast into the future, something stops its course.

One day, for not respecting an important pact made with us, Luna and I had a heated fight and the consequence was dramatic; she disappeared from our life, never making herself heard again, not even with Bianca.

I cried, I accused myself of having failed, I questioned the choices I made with my wife, because obviously Luna's escape showed that they had been wrong. And even though my wife kept saying the opposite, and that I should have been patient, but I didn't believe her.

After almost two years, when my hope was running out, Luna called me and asked me to meet you. We met in a bar, it was a warm and gentle day. Luna just wanted me to listen to her: "I'm not here to ask you something, I just wanted to see you to tell you that many things have happened in these two years and this is one of them". At the same time she opened the bag and put her diploma on the table, she was proud of herself, and then continued:

"I had two ways: one was to continue to take drugs, and probably end up worse than my parents, and the other was to try to make the seeds you have planted in my life flourish over the years. I chose the latter. Today I live in a studio in Varese, I work in a fast food restaurant and I support myself but I needed to say thank you! ».

Every holy time I remember and tell this story I am moved. Even now. Because the flower that had been cut was able to blossom again, by itself, clinging to a feeling that it did not know before. And today that Luna is a splendid colored flower, I want to try to imagine the dialogue she had with that feeling: «Hi, I'm Luna». "Pleasure. My name is Love, and I am at your disposal. Never forget it ».

Max Laudadio
NP october 2020