PATHS ARE MADE OF MANY PEOPLE WITH DIFFERENT STORIES AND REASONS
The meeting with Raphael (French-speaking Switzerland) was very special. I was opening my workshop and he was walking towards me. He knew about the “YOUR STEP IS ALREADY HISTORY” project. He helped me set out the objects I put outside every morning, as if we were two old friends, and meanwhile he told me about his experiences as a pilgrim. I invited him inside, and we began painting the footprint onto the peperino, where he would then write his name; and as he wrote, he told me about the Association of French-speaking Switzerland for families of children with cancer (ARFEC – Association Romande des Familles d’Enfants atteints d’un Cancer), which helps children suffering from cancer who are forced to walk a painful path, and which he tries to support in their journey, helping them however he can. Raphael told me that, during the pontificate of Pope Wojtyła – Pope John Paul II – he was a Swiss Guard at the Vatican in the very same years when I, a young university student, used to walk past there every morning… only to cross paths with him, thirty years later, on the pilgrims’ way, in front of my workshop… the magic of these paths! Thank you, pilgrim Raphael!
