"That is why I can love the sea"

The year did not start well for Davide. Illness that shook him and his family. Then, Coronavirus and a foggy future, wrecking schemes and plans. "Yet, I did not drown”.

Since the beginning of the year, I have been learning to live "like a Brazilian": from what a missionary told me, life in the favelas does not fluctuate between stable certainties, like home or work, but everything can change every day. Mothers do not know how many mouths they will have to feed at the end of the day, wives do not know if their husbands will come home alive, men do not know if they will have a job the next day.

With GS, we went to Milan during the winter holidays. I got sick, and I stayed in the hotel and missed a lot of things. On the way back, still sick, I could not celebrate New Year's Eve with my friends. In the meantime, my family also got sick and we could not go down to Puglia with my grandparents, who I had not seen since August and who, Covid permitting, I will only see this summer.

Several times during this period, I have happened to think about death. I cried. Several times I had to take care of the shopping and other things that made me conscious of the time that I have, which, deluded, I want to be the master of. Moreover, my father works in an intensive care unit... And then, who knows what will happen about my high school graduation? And after that, I was supposed to meet some people in order to choose a university, now we will see.

It is a sea that I have been sailing since the beginning of the year, and, many times, I was in danger of drowning. Between unforeseen events and missed projects. Reality has broken every pattern. Yet, it has been a gift to live these months, where I have never stopped perceiving that everything was happening for me. I do not know what allowed this. Certainly, this was helped by the fact that at School of Community, even when we talked about drama and misfortune, it was always done in a positive way; and not out of optimism, but out of faith in reality. I thought: "That is how I want to live my life".

So, even when I cried, I thought about the faces of my friends, those of my brothers: whatever happens, they will continue to love me. Maybe love really is that "fixed point among the waves of the sea”, which Claudio Chieffo’s song Parsifal speaks about. Reality, even with Coronavirus, can be embraced. The sea can be loved.

Read also - "More at risk, but happier"

Self-isolation in these days has made me perceive, even more, my need for friends, grandparents, classmates (with whom, lately, beautiful relationships are flourishing) and even brothers, with whom I quarrel all day long. I cannot do it alone, I need Something bigger to life me up again and again. This Something happened to me. And it is always there, even when I am distracted.

David, Imola, Italy