To love life

Publish date 23-04-2021

by Rosanna Tabasso

After more than forty years, for the first time it was not the fasting dinner and the Peace March that introduced us to the new year. Each of us from our own home has certainly remembered the experiences lived, but no one has limited himself to remembering with nostalgia. We have chosen to look ahead and communicate it with the means at our disposal. "There is life!" it was the message we tried to communicate, in our empty church, in front of the camera that took us to the homes of many friends connected with us. We have tried to find together the reasons for hope, beyond the limits imposed by the pandemic.
While the images of a river of living water flowed before our eyes, we listened to chapter 47 of the prophet Ezekiel: the water gushes from the temple, from the place of God's presence, it spreads, grows and where it arrives it restores life to the arid earth. , heal everything. Rebirth, hope, life find their source in this living presence of God who never abandons his creatures and all creation.

The year that has just begun will be no less difficult than the one that has just ended and the dryness of the heart risks taking us, entering it and making us sad and depressed too, but the presence of God in the sign of the water that flows from him gives us hope. , it gives us back the love of life. The year that begins is a year of life to be loved in spite of everything, it cannot be taken for granted in such a difficult time and it does us good to remember it. The promise of Jesus guides us: «If anyone is thirsty, come to me and drink whoever believes in me. As the Scripture says: From his womb rivers of living water will flow "(Jn 7: 37-38). This promise re-introduces us into life, commits us to love life in all its facets, to always know how to see wealth, even in times of fragility. There are people who embody this love for life and are examples to be sought, from which to learn because they know how to express love for life in every situation, without fanaticism, in a natural way.

I think of Cecilia, a friend of Sermig from the first hour. She is a simple, modest woman, always busy, always available naturally, without half measures but without exaggeration.
She is balanced, practical and at the same time profound. She was always there at our every initiative, and every new emergency found her at the forefront, to open a new reception, to participate in a meeting ... she did not appear but she was there. As there was for every person who "adopted" and who had in her a constant point of reference, faithful over time. I remember his phone calls to deliver people who had problems and for whom he was trying to find solutions, or whom he wanted to entrust to our prayers ... A whole life lived like this, without ever neglecting his family, his being wife, mother, grandmother. Cecilia was like that and to say it now that in an amen she left for Heaven is not rhetoric, it is recognizing the good she left in all of us. It is recognizing her hymn to her life and making her silent testimony our own.

Mariose's years, a friend of the first hour, were also a hymn to life. She was disabled but she has always participated in the life of Sermig accompanied by a group of friends who have always followed her. Over the past ten years she had come to live at the Arsenale, with us. With her determination she was an example of love for life in a frail person both physically and psychologically. Her limits were evident and yet she lived fully every moment of her day: her services in the laundry or in the offices, her friendships, the phone calls to her friends, the appointments with her favorite TV programs, the care for plants, her room full of light. She liked everything she could live and everything about her expressed the fullness of her life. When she wanted something more or something different she would get pounded to try to fulfill her desire for her, but if she couldn't, she would go back to being satisfied with what she had. She taught us that there is a way to love life even in the little you have and in the much you lack.

I also think of Lidia, in her nineties, who has always fought with her ailments but never lost her smile, she suffered but always went on, she fell but always got up, got sick and healed and every time let it be understood that it was the love of those who treated her that healed her, because life is nourished by love. She has thus added day to day, with the joy of living, and it was like this until her last breath, when she left everything she loved and all those who loved her on earth for a more love. great.
She loved life. Now, in God, she is in life forever.

Living life fully, this is the lesson that these friends leave us.
None of these people had an easy life, each has lived its battles, has gone through tiring times but all have in common the passion, the love for life in all its times, in all its seasons, in all its forms. This is what they testify to us, this is what they teach us. The river of living water is there and flows in many, many people who live silently near us. The source of life is God. Each of us is bathed by this river which makes our life fruitful, heals it and makes it full in every time, in every season. Even in time of Covid, let's not forget to live and love life. It is also the most precious gift he has given us!

Rosanna Tabasso
NP January 2021

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