Mariarosa was just over seventy, but the hardships of life marked her painfully. She was lately hosted in a family-home of the Caritas. After a happy childhood – she gladly used to talk about, boasting her abilities of shepherdess, too – she experienced much less happy seasons of poverty and social exclusion; but she didn’t talk about it so much.

Mariarosa passed away a few months ago. During her funeral the chaplain read a few lines found at the end of a notebook where she used to write or mostly she dictated to the social workers of the Caritas she was in friendship with:

“I’m okay, now. there are people who love and care of me. I’ve lots of time to think about my life. There are many questions I can find no answer. I accept my life, for whatever it has given to me and even for what it didn’t give to me”.

A lesson in wisdom, by Mariarosa, in a society that sometimes struggles to find the meaning of life.