Jia En is a young man who has been sick with cancer from the time that he was 10 years old. Now he is 18 and in his final exams of high school he received excellent grades that allow him to study in any university and in any department that he likes. This is something rare: many of the students that we encounter cannot study what they would like to. Unfortunately Jia En was not able to attend even a day of his lessons, because his illness reached a terminal stage that was beyond any human hope. His aunt, who has attended the parish and the school of community since 2009, told me that her nephew was in a grave condition, and was recovering in a hospital in Taipei. She asked me to go and see him in order to comfort him and to speak with him and his parents. I understood that it was serious and decided to go on a scooter to see him in the two free hours that I had between lessons in the morning and lessons in the evening. At 1:30, I reached the hospital. His mother was in the room with him and I see that Jia had grown up quite a bit since the last time that I saw him, which was during high school when he used to come to the little group for young people at the parish, even if he didn’t live close by. During Covid, since his illness was getting worse, he was no longer able to come. His mother told me that Jia still remembers with nostalgia the pasta that I had cooked for them. He was seated on the bed, head shaven, two tubes in his nose for oxygen. He was wearing pajamas with colored cats on them: on his chest, one could see scars, signs of the different operations that he has undergone in eight years fighting this illness. The tumor was his liver, then spread to his lungs, to his spine and then everywhere. He was awake and his father was massaging his back to give him some relief from the pain that the morphine was not able to numb.
He told me that he is happy to have gone to university thanks to his efforts and not defined by his condition. When he was in the youth group of the parish, at times his mother did not allow him to participate in certain activities, because, like all, Taiwanese young people, he had to go, even on Sundays, to private lessons for English, or mathematics. At the time, I was perplexed: I knew that he was sick and that probably he would not have much time, but his parents wanted him to live his life like the others and I get it to a certain extent you cannot give up you must live and have hope for the future. However, one time I said to his mother: “Why don’t you want him to come with us on the vacation for the youth group? Don’t you think that there are certain priorities in life?”.
Paradise is a most beautiful place. A father awaits us there, and a mother will welcome us
Now Jia had grown up and was very sick. I asked him, “Are you scared?”. “Yes,” he responded. “Of what?”. “Of not being able to make it.””Do not be afraid,” I told him. “Let yourself go in the hands of God: ask him that this cross be meaningful. Paradise is a most beautiful place without any more pain or tears. A Father awaits us there, and a mother will welcome us.” I prayed with him and with his parents, and towards the end, his aunt and grandmother also came.
I understood that even in front of the evidence of imminent death, we cannot give up. Everything rebels in us: physical reality itself reacts to survive. Every instant, every beat of our heart, every breath asks for life. But the life that doesn’t die is only Christ. Even if one could live 1000 years, they would not have sufficiently satisfied the desire for eternal life that we have. Life is truly a gift. We are not Masters of anything, and there are no alternatives either: either we are totally wretched or we are in the hands of God.
Jia En did not survive the night. His mother wrote to me: “He went home to heaven.” I responded to her: “May he rest in peace. God has taken him into his arms.” When I met with the other young people for our weekly meeting, one of the songs that they chose to introduce was “Favola” by Claudio Chieffo. “We are together,” I said, at the end of the meeting, “Not to learn some technique to improve our life. We are here to learn the meaning of life and we are not alone like this song says: “There is someone with you; He will not leave you. Do not be afraid, do not turn back but go.”
