"Yet the goodness he brought into the world is so great that it deserves to end up somewhere, to take shape somehow."
Today we want to tell you a story. It’s the story of a mother who lost a son, of a niece seeking a gesture that might help her mourning aunt find meaning and perspective in her grief. The story is told in the first person by Anna, the niece; yet Anna's words, her desire for meaning and hope, speak to all of us and could belong to any of us. Anna, Francesco, and Erminia are symbols, reminding us that those we hold in our hearts never truly leave us and that there are countless ways to remember them and allow them to continue living. This, for us, is the meaning of donations made in memory: in November, a month dedicated to remembrance, we want to tell you of an action that links love for those who are no longer with us to the opportunity to offer tangible support to those in need in the Middle East.
Last year, my aunt lost a son.
The rooms of her old house filled with his images, with Francesco. Dozens of moments, frozen at their peak, live on the wallpapered corridors dimly lit by shadows: the smiles of a child, the brooding of a teenager, the caresses of a father posed beside his family. Francesco is everywhere, he lives everywhere in the house on Via Gismondi in Bologna: after the heart attack, his life became film and memory.
My aunt Erminia walks through the rooms with the slow steps of the elderly, and she never looks at those photographs. Every Sunday, she moves from the living room to the kitchen, fragrant with the smell of sauce, stirs a wooden spoon in the pot, and sets the table for us family members who come to visit her. Her generous heart longs to keep caring—for her husband Germano, wheelchair-bound for twenty years; for her son Claudio; for all of us nieces and nephews—in a calling that has marked her entire life. And yet those unlooked-at photographs are an essential presence for Erminia: in them, Francesco has form and substance, accompanying his mother in her daily gestures as if he never truly left.
At nearly ninety, the pain of losing a son is heartbreaking: I see her, smiling at the nieces and nephews as she makes them an afternoon snack, folding laundry and putting it away in dark wooden drawers—I see her suffer deeply with every gesture. Yet this very pain affirms the incredible strength of my aunt Erminia, which all of us see and admire each day: supported by her faith, which inhabits her heart strongly, tied to timeless habits and rituals, she devotes herself fully to what around her continues to live on.
Sometimes, after lunch, while the cousins and nieces and nephews laugh, full and content around the still-laid table, I watch her secretly as she slips away to straighten a couch cushion, to fetch a photo album, or for any other small excuse she has found to carve out a moment for herself. Last Sunday, she saw me watching her and motioned for me to come closer, welcoming me into her private space filled with relief and memory.
"Look, Anna, do you remember? We were in Rimini, and Francesco used to pester you with that prank that always made you so mad!"
So she did look at them, the photographs! We went through them together, recalling every moment frozen forever in the frame. Stroking the last one, hung by her bedside table, she told me how what pains her most is the thought that the world will forget Francesco, that he now lives only within the walls of her home: no one else will ever know what a good man he was, how many worlds lived within his soul. Yet the goodness he brought into the world is so much that it deserves to end up somewhere, to take shape somehow.
So, I decided to give her a gift: I want to offer her companions to share with her the gratitude for Francesco, creating a gesture that will help not only us but also benefit others in need. Soon, a year will have passed since her loss, and I thought of commemorating this painful anniversary with an act of building and hope: a donation in memory of Francesco. My aunt Erminia, generous and devoted, has always had a heart for charity; in this way, Francesco’s love will become something good and tangible, creating a positive impact on someone else’s life.
Choosing which project to dedicate to my cousin’s memory was clear: I wanted to tie the donation to his story and my aunt’s, and the idea came naturally. I chose to direct the gift to supporting schools in the Holy Land. The Holy Land is very dear to my aunt Erminia, who has explored almost all of it through journeys and pilgrimages over her life, and school is the place where education and care unite to build a community aware and eager for peace. This is precisely what Erminia has tried all her life to foster in her children and later her nieces and nephews: I wanted the tender gaze that only a mother can cast upon her child as she watches him grow and make his own life to extend to the children of the Holy Land, to care for them too.
Thus, Erminia’s love can embrace her son, her family, and the entire world, in the perpetual remembrance of Francesco, who will never truly die.
Discover how you can remember those in your heart: with a donation in memory, you will forever link their name to a story that never ends.
