“Edoardo: My second Life”

Edward is young, 28 years old. “I feel as though I have already lived another life… and this is the second one I’m living, because, thanks to the community, I am born again “. We are at “The Discarded Pebble-Stone”, a social cooperative on the outskirts of Rimini which produces organic products. It is here that he is working today, after having served his sentence at an alternative location in “Mother’s Home of Forgiveness” at Pope John XXIII Community.

Edo was born in Chile, he arrived in Italy at 6 where he was adopted by a family in the Marche region. “It all went wrong. Relations between us have never worked out. My father was always away, my mother, a little nervous and unstable in nature, was often busy with her work. They had also adopted a girl, a year younger than me. In practice, my sister was often at my father’s mother’s home, who lived under us.. I too, preferred staying with my grandmother. I was all on my own, most of the day”.

At the age of 15, Edward was sent to boarding-school in Lodi: his parents were on the verge of a divorce. “At that time, I communicated with my parents only through my grandmother. She came to know that my father had gone off with another woman … (he has never had any more news from him since ndr-note of the editor) that my mother was suffering from a nervous breakdown and that my sister had stopped eating. “I couldn’t stand the college. I felt like being in a cage. I only had an hour per day to take a breath of fresh air. There was a lot of delinquency., I took a lot of blows and gave them back too. But I had to defend myself: bad stories of bullying and lots of drugs circulated. ”
Back home, he tried to make do as best he could; taking a diploma at the High School for Scientific Studies in Ancona, living in hostels, hotels, and studio-flats: “I didn’t want to drop out and throw away my life. I had difficulty in staying out all on my own but I was proud and I had no desire to ask others for their help and I didn’t want them to think that I had no guts. ”

Thanks to illegal odd jobs here and there, he managed to arduously keep up with his studies at school, risking to fall asleep on the school-desk following a night’s work. After his school studies. he decides to go to University. Back in Milan, he lives from hand to mouth and begins trafficking with drugs. “Drugs gave me the means to support myself: the end justifies the means. Today I realize I did it because I wanted to be accepted and be loved by someone. People wanted me, came to look for me, I was surrounded by people but they were there only for the drugs. I thought they were all there for me, that I had finally found some friends but alas, I’ve been disappointed many times”.

He was arrested and sentenced to one year and two months on probation, and penalty suspended at 21. Then comes the robbery, and another sentence … This time he lands in prison. Through the lawyer’s proposal, the community “Papa Giovanni” represents an important occasion for him to go to the cause of all the choices he made in his life. He arrives at “Mother’s Home of Forgiveness”, following five long months of agony in jail.

“In addition to the work, there was the rehabilitation. Every day, we had group meetings to talk about ourselves, understand our past grief or the reason why we had done wrong. We spoke a lot about anger, family and emotions. Almost all the guys who arrive there, experience emotional literacy. I have tried to get to know myself, I asked myself many questions and dug into my past life, but I had enormous difficulties speaking about myself. This work has done a lot for me because I clearly know who I am, what I want and where I’m going. I had the right tools, I’ve learned to look deep into myself, I fully understand what I am like and the reason for my attitude. I can now give a reason for my behavior. I realized that I didn’t want money or material things, I needed the simple things in life, like the family- atmosphere, interpersonal-relations, dialogue, and also to be understood.

I was on the look out for people who would accompany me along this path in life, that I be accepted by them for what I am and not as they wanted me to be. This is what saved me, the feeling of being accepted by Giorgio and the others (educators at Pope Giovanni, ndr-note of the editor) for what I am, including all my inhibitions. ”

Edo is 25 now and still dreams of the University, but most of all, dreams of setting up a family with a wife and children. “You know, I’m now living alone, I’ve rented out a small place close by and I come to work by bicycle, … For the first time, I really feel free”. I look at Edo working, smiling and joking with other disabled youngsters who have been introduced into the cooperative, and my mind takes me back to don Oreste, who used to say that the detainee is a resource lacking in our society, an asset that we often deprive ourselves of.