© Unsplash/Jeswin Thomas

Rimini: “The indelible mark”

Morning prayer, the news of the war and all the fears that assail her. Then that gaze on her own life… A letter from a 17-year-old student

February 24 was a somewhat difficult day, but full of those “whispers” that we talked about during the GS School of Community. I woke up and, in a totally amazing and unusual way for me, found myself praying for the day that was about to begin. I later heard the news about the first Russian bombings in Ukraine. My whole world fell apart. I wondered: “How can it be that I have been praying for this day and the first news I receive is the outbreak of a terrible war?” Then, on the back of a picture of a friend of mine who died last year I read this phrase: “It is so easy to obey.” I asked myself: “Is this what I need to obey to? What can I do in this situation?”

I spent probably the worst six hours of my life in school, because my head was fixated on the war and I was flooded with worries and fears that were suffocating and drowning me. In the afternoon, however, something changed. What allowed me to calm all these worries and not drown was the thought that if I look back on my life, I realise that I have encountered something. I received something for which I can say: “Even if my life ended tomorrow I would be grateful for what has happened to me.”

Read also - Venezuela-Florida: A boundless friendship

Because even though I am only 17, I have encountered something that does not make my worries go away, but remains an indelible mark that cannot be chased away by the worries of the present and the future. That thing happened. And no one can take it away from me. I really needed to go to School of Community; I needed to see the faces of those friends who have something to do with all this.

Agnese, Rimini, Italy