“Letters Under the Tree” | 9

What could be more beautiful than a letter written by many little hands? Here is one from the boys and girls of Sun Park***

Dear World,

“if we met God we would like to tell him”….
to stop getting sick or find a way to accept even times of sickness, to help us enjoy healing. How to learn to be lucky or not to need luck anymore, because life cannot be lucky for some and not for others.

We would tell him what we would like to do when we grow up, but also how good it is to always feel a little small, even when we become adults.

We’d like to ask him to let us meet the loved ones we’ve lost, even if only in dreams, remembering that you don’t always need to see, but it’s okay just to be able to hear again. Like the grandmothers, siblings and cousins we feel next to us, when we are sad, but also when we are happy. Perhaps that is the strongest presence, remaining despite the absence.

We would be curious to know what the heaven that awaits us is like, to prepare to inhabit it as we prepare to live in this world, sometimes difficult to understand.

We would ask him to embrace even once a person who is gone and we still love. Or to continue to meet the people we have lost and find in the gaze of those who are here near us, and we can continue to embrace and love.

You know God, sometimes the lack is very great, because each person who is gone leaves a void … which thanks to you, however, it is possible to fill.

Please continue to protect our families, loved ones, friends, comrades, caregivers, give comfort to those who are hurting, to those who think they have lost and instead have found a bond stronger than distance, to those who are hungry and need to be satiated with affection.

Thank you for all the times you have helped us in silence and listening, thank you even now because you hear us in the midst of a world that often makes much confusion.

We know that when we pray to you, you hear us, and we would like the grown-ups to hear us too when they forget.

We for this Christmas just want to meet you again, to thank you for the greatest gift you have given us: to be here, to be alive, to be your children too.

Thank you for the parents you have given us, for life even if it sometimes seems difficult, remind us that to face it we need love. The greatest cure for any kind of confusion.

(The boys and girls of the Park of the Sun – Palermo)

*** Social promotion association working in the Albergheria neighborhood of Palermo, in the church of San Giovanni Decollato