Some years ago to a Church meeting a speaker asked: "If I said grandparents, what would you think about?" Grandparents... my grandparents? First of all I remembered of my grandmother of my mother line, a very sweety person which I spent unforgettable moments in my childhood, but concerning grandparents of my father line I couldn't say the same. They were like two strangers for me, very different ones than my family. My grandparents were rich and lived in the lap of luxury and waste. Their home was an offence to the good taste and I didn't like it much because it lacked feeling. I visited them with my father and my mother in Christmas time and in Easter time, we changed greetings each others and then the visit was over. The reasons of all that coldheartedness were because of things concerning my father and them, but my mother and I were included too and when my father died they didn't cared about us. Years passed by and in the Church I learned of many virtuosos principles but I didn't understand how to have an eternal family with unknown members to me. In 1995 my granmother was taken of cerebral ictus and my grandfather looked for my help to find out a male nurse for the cares she needed. Some months after my grandmother was taken of a second ictus and at that time something special happened. She needed me again but that time not only for one day. There were many cares expenses and my grandparents weren't rich yet than when I was a little child. They became poor and needed for cares, so they remembered of me. It was no easy to attend them, it seemed unfair to me but I remembered a Tagore quote: "I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy". So my mother and I attended them bringing something to eat and more. One day my grandmother asked me to help to comb her hair and I started to look at her... how far was the blond lady all dressed with jewels telling me: "You are nobody for me" when I was a little child. I remembered so strong in my mind Paul the Apostle's verse said: "Love thy enemy" and a great feeling of peace was inside of my heart. In front of me there was no enemy but an old and frail woman almost blind at all, she did wrong many things in her life but who was I to judge her? I simply told her: "Granma, I love you" and she replied: "Me too, but I wished so much to hear it from you". From that time on our relations changed at all because we started to know each others. I remember in Christmas time of 1995 Missionaries of the Church and I went to my grandparents' to sing some himns and how awesome to see her looking for me through her white eyes because of the cataract but full of love and that house was lacked feeling no more. One day my grandmother called me to ask a favour: she wished to let me do her family's genealogy and she wanted to give me some traces to follow. During one of my visits my grandmother got an attack again. I got on the ambulance with her and while she pressed my hand so strong she told me: "Forgive me". But I have anything to forgive her no more. She died few days after. Then sometimes my grandfather went to my home to live with me. He loved me too and he showed it in many particular ways. For example one day he gave me his wedding-ring with the promise to give it to the man I'd married. When we had dinner together he denied himself the best portion and putted it on my plate. He said he made amends for the things he never given me in the past. The truth was that I didn't received jewels or precious things by my grandparents but never ending treasures for sure, as their love that just in two years it made an amend for 25 years of hate and distance. When my grandfather died I was with him, we talked gently and my hands pressed on his hands. He said he loved me so much... much more I could imagined and that he never left me alone. Now few years passed by and when I get discouraged I think of the words of the Prophet Malachi: "And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers..." (Malachi 4:6) and think about the miracle of love happened to our family.
Thanks to my friend Chiara di Gesu for her support.