The House of Hope

Looking at the images of   Buenos Aires   taken by satellites from space, in the northern region, very close to the river, can be observed as a flash, a light reverberance, small but unmistakable.

Let's get it as if it were a   photographic lens   or separate our fingers as resting on a cellular device. We will come to see on a wooded street with old paradises, an English style house. With a fence to the front and a very well-kept garden behind. Full of white and yellow flowers no matter the time of year. And on one side, a chapel of the   Virgin of Lourdes   .

When I was invited to meet the   hospice san camilo   I hesitated enough to accept. With misery and arrogance I thought of my dead and my pain. And I said, “I've got my thing, what else for? “.

But then they told me about the   guests   and the work of   volunteers   (everyone who works there are volunteers). I found out what they tell him   the house of hope   and something, like a pearl is formed by wrapping   a grain of sand   It enveloped my fears. And transforming their roots they made a warm nest for my heart.

Sitting inside the car under a legendary tree I wondered if I was doing the right thing, if necessary. I could let the note do another, make me on one side, and I looked at the tree. So many storms and rains, so many hearts   teenagers   and broken branches and it was still there, a paradise in front of a house of death.

I rang a bell. “Hello, are you Marcelo? Welcome to   the house of hope   “.

The smile of the volunteer who opened the door for me could only be compared to that hit-down of light that was pushing her out to meet me. For a moment I squinted, everything inside had a higher graduation, everything inside that house was shining a little brighter. I had prepared myself for a dark and sad place and that nursery fluorescence captivated me. It was clear that any record of death that lived in my memory had nothing to do there. That luggage was supposed to be left on the sidewalk.

I came in.   I don't know what amazed me the most   . And I don't know if the word amazement is right to encompass everything I felt at the time. As in   a square   of games, life was everywhere in the delicious steamers that came from the kitchen. The pressurous and happy steps of volunteers trying to fulfill guests' requests. Home noises, home, so forgotten in places of “health”.

Now that I read my notes I understand what amazed me most on that first visit. The     love         in all its forms and gestures. The   love   to those guests usually very forgotten for so many years by all.

And as one volunteer told me, “Forgotten by everyone but God. The best thing that can happen to us is that in every gesture, in every word, they find themselves. Because then they'll be finding God. And when that happens the   guest   again happens to have a name and is no longer the patient in bed 38 or 121. Start a process of   healing   that heals his soul and heart. At a much higher speed than any expensive luxury car can develop.”

Those   guests   who now became Javier, Mariano or Luisa as when they were children, and who has a story to tell - because we all have a story - are heard and blessed. It doesn't matter what they've done or their past, because this is   the house of the   hope     , this is the   hospice san camilo   . And from here, everyone, everyone, the guests, the volunteers, and even me who went alone to make a note, we all went out redeemed.

  Hospice San Camilo is a place of help and assistance to patients, without the possibility of curative treatments, in a terminal process. In the house is not only given containment and company, absolutely free of charge to the sick, but also to his relatives. All those have a priority treatment   sick   who are in a greater vulnerable situation   .