I want to tell you how the life of a child of not even 4 years old gave life to a “Tree of Memories” which became a meeting point for many families and people of all ages who allowed themselves to be reached by the clear gaze of this little one.
Diego, with blue eyes and a sly smile, is a child who will probably not be remembered in prestigious history books, but whose life story has shown, to those who love him, how much it is not the amount of time lived or the objectives achieved or missed that determine the value or beauty of a journey. He concretely showed his mother and father how the only thing that really matters in life is to love and let yourself be loved.
Six years ago, my husband and I accompanied that much-desired son, who had made us parents for the first time, on his last stretch of earthly journey, experiencing first-hand all the impotence, fragility and finitude of human life. In that part of the journey we had the gift of the precious closeness of family and friends and in sharing what then seemed only a terrible event, Diego became a silent seed invisible to the eyes. With his death, he began to weave the roots of a wonderful plant whose existence we didn’t know at the time.
In these six years we have gone through lights and shadows, walking in the alleys of the heart, experiencing in this pain the inexplicable darkness of loneliness, but also savoring the life force that comes from sharing human frailties. I had never stopped to think about how many Italian verbs express the way in which human beings can remember: remember, recall, remember, remember, rethink… I had not grasped the profound essence of these actions, except when I experienced them: reliving in the heart as the cradle of love, giving voice to that love in a new way, listening to the memories of love imprinted in the limbs, recalling the sweetness of a perfume, the intensity of a look, the tenderness of a hand that shakes yours, returning in thought to that shared time that led us to the present. All human expressions that involve soul, body and spirit.
Drawing on the total, profound dimension of us, we have experienced how memory becomes, in this sense, a living identity that permeates the present with that unique Love capable of overcoming death while continuing to generate life. A memory that helps us grasp new nuances and meanings, pushing our steps where we never thought we could walk. In this time we have faced daily with the need to remember, perceiving how all these nuances, although different for each one, speak of a profoundly human gesture. Remembering is like wearing Sunday clothes, on holidays and not only for the refinement, for the high register but because this gesture has a power capable of revealing the beauty hidden behind the veil of pain.
In the age of fast and fragmented communication we are bombarded by faces and words that run fast and we risk having our memory reduced to an image that scrolls on social media, to an ephemeral notification. In a world where consumerism reigns and where we follow a superficial “carpe diem” in a “disposable” life, remembering becomes an act of revolution of hope where the impossible becomes possible. Contemplating the wonderful possibility given to us to “seize the day” and the awareness of the inevitability of death, the meaning of life is given back to us. Sense understood as direction and not as a vain explanation: a way capable of showing us the possibility of a life of fullness because every moment is filled with love and not with virtual objects and realities. We often find ourselves stuck in a sea of ”whys” between feelings of guilt and questions whose answer is a deafening silence.
The love that binds us to Diego is what activates a constant memory, a daily memory that makes him present at every step we take. Over the years, however, I have understood how important it is for this memory to be free of vain fantasies or pure rational constructs so that this love continues to grow and bear fruit. And I feel this is possible when “the mind descends into the heart”, when I allow the pain to show me the way, welcoming it and not silencing it with rationality. Trying to interpret the mystery with human logic and reason is like trying to hold air with your hands; just because we can’t do it doesn’t mean that we aren’t immersed in the great breath that moves in us and with us. The unsuccessful attempt at this gesture only tells us that we are using the wrong tool. As Father Guidalberto Bormolini says: “Pain, suffering and illness cannot have a “why”, but they can have a “for”. Let’s drop the last syllable. No explanation can be valid in the face of suffering, however pain acquires meaning when it indicates a direction.”
And it is precisely the desire to drop all the “whys”, to find a new direction with friends who have been able to endure the struggle, that gave rise to the still formless intention of making memories together, re-signifying something inexplicable and unacceptable. This desire began to materialize 4 years ago with the friends of Libero Giardino aps, through the organization of the “Bricks in the Garden” event. A day in which to celebrate the beauty of life lived in Love on the occasion of Diego’s birthday. A simple and always new day, designed to give families shared time in an atmosphere of sparkling joy, warm welcome, playful light-heartedness and simple humanity.
This year, the collective awareness that remembering is a living thing, always evolving and maturing over time, pushed us to have a more defined framework. The common thread in the organization of this 4th edition of the event was precisely the “value of remembering”.
In the days preceding the “Bricks in the Garden” day we held an evening for parents entitled “Accompanying children when words fail”. We discussed the topic of loss by addressing the common difficulty in finding within ourselves the right words to accompany our children in these realities that are an integral part of life, starting from reading a book very dear to us. A book that with its intensity accompanied us and the families of Diego’s friends in many special moments: “The tree of memories”. The same book was the starting point of the collaboration with the Valdidentro primary school: the children created a collective work of extreme social value. Each class had a piece of a real tree to work on with different guiding questions. The fruit of their work became that wonderful Tree of Memories that I spoke about at the beginning of this story. A concrete and visible sign of the message of love that Diego continues to whisper to our hearts and which welcomed with surprise all the children and families who then visited us at the multipurpose “Rasin” in Valdidentro on the eve of the event for the “Boxed Games Evening!” and Sunday for the “Bricks” day of celebration in the Garden among many stands of games with bricks, fun challenges, curious workshops, and moments of sharing for adults and children in the form of enchanted circles and conscious breathing. The ingredients for the success of this wonderful day are always many: the organization and sharing of intentions of the members of Libero Giardino, the cheerful presence of children, parents, friends, grandparents, all left to rest in a slow time seasoned with smiles, laughter and, if it escapes, a few tears promptly dissolved in warm hugs.
Every year my family faces this day with intensity, surrounded by the sincere affection and concrete support of all the friends who collaborate in organizing this day. A day in which Diego does not ask us for a material gift but for something infinitely greater and more mysterious, something that seems simple but sometimes turns out to be very difficult. He asks us to stay. Being in every love that clashes with lack, being in the emotions that memory moves within us, being in relationships with others without judgment and with such delicacy because each of us is the bearer of a precious story, of lights and shadows, of falls and new beginnings, of a beauty that when shared makes beautiful things flourish.
Diego continues to hold our hand and his life continues to be a gift for us and for the friends of the Free Garden who contribute to the growth of this splendid Tree of Memories, made up of relationships that intertwine, of intentions that become fruits, of leaves of the heart that must be let go to make room for new ones. And we, parents between heaven and earth, with the help of old and new friends, would simply like to continue to bring his message to those who want to share a stretch of the road.
As the poet Emily Dickinson says: “To fill a void you must insert what caused it. If you fill it with something else, it will open its jaws even more. You cannot close an abyss with air.” Our emptiness, like the profound nostalgia that inhabits every human heart, is given by Love. Love that now for us has the transfigured face of our son, on a journey in which death has reversed the roles, making Diego the North Star of our growth journey.
*Monica Lanfranchi – Free Garden aps
