Many squares

The virus also took Damira away. The families of the sick children we host invite us to a lunch to remember her and pray for her. She was the founder of the Childhood Cancer Department in Bishkek.
Before her, the children in Kyrgyzstan didn't have much hope ... and after her? A mother cries, not only a woman who loved her died. She died a possibility. This doctor had encouraged her to leave for a distant land and she would wait for her when she returned.
And now who will take care of our children? She still looks like a girl and is already a mother of three girls. In front of her, she doesn't dare cry, but in an embrace she tells us how lost she feels. How long will this virus be around?
We also ask ourselves this every day ...

Ilaria now takes an hour to get dressed and another hour to undress, she almost looks like an astronaut in her suit but does not go on a mission in space: now she works as a doctor in a covid ward just set up for emergency. We can no longer see each other as before. Each remains separate.
Evil wants us divided. This time is a big challenge for those who want to be an open door: continuing to do good for us means looking after our children who have very low immune defenses. So we leave the volunteers at home even before it becomes mandatory.
We realize once again the precious value of each of them, the work they do, which we alone are unable to carry out, but above all of their presence. We hear them on the phone to be together. Some have had the desire to continue a piece of their service through the computer.
But above all we want to remain a family.

By now we are used to looking at ourselves through the screen, we are used to many small squares, each square with the face of a person.
This afternoon, however, there is a special guest. We are connected in many of her, including Mary Mother of the young, who has a little square for her. She sits with us and prays with us. We started praying the rosary together. We have found a way not to stop being united.

Maria Caudia Brunello
Arsenal of Harmony
NP December 2020