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

Let's tap the shot as if it were a photographic lens or separate your fingers as supported by a cellular device. We will see on a tree-lined street with old paradises, an English style house. With a fence to the front and a very manicured garden behind. Packed with white and yellow flowers no matter the time of year. And on the side, a little chapel of the Virgin of Lourdes.

When I was invited to visit the San Camilo hospice I hesitated enough to accept. With misery and arrogance I thought of my dead and my pain. And I said, “I got mine, what else?”

But then they told me about the guests and the work of the volunteers (all those who work there are volunteers). I learned that they tell the house of hope and something, like a pearl is formed wrapping a grain of sand, enveloped my fears. And by 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 someone else make the note, stand aside, and I looked at the tree. So many storms and rains, so many teenage hearts and broken branches and still there, a paradise in front of a house of death.

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

The smile of the volunteer who had opened the door for me could only be compared to that stroke of light that was pushed to come out to meet me. For a moment I squint, everything inside had a higher graduation, everything inside that house shone 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 dwelt in my memory had nothing to do there. That luggage was supposed to be left on the sidewalk.

I went in. I don't know what surprised me the most. And I don't know if the word amazement is right to encompass everything I felt at the time. Like in a playground , life was everywhere in the delicious steamers coming from the kitchen. The hasty and happy steps of the volunteers trying to fulfill the requests of the guests. The noises of home, of home, so forgotten in places of “health”.

Now that I reread my notes I understand what “amazed” me most on that first visit. Love in all its forms and gestures. Love hac