« In the pope’s hug, my daughter Angelika lives again »
Everyone was affected, on April 1, 2023, by the pain of Serena and Matteos, who at night lost their only daughter, affected by trisomy 18. Outside Gemelli, they met Pope Francis and were affected by his paternal warmth. « A hug that was worth more than a thousand words – Serena recalls – for us, an indelible moment, » Radio Vatican writes.
« A broken heart. » It is a phrase that Serena Subania repeats several times during a conversation with the Vatican media. There is no other word to explain what the mother feels about the child’s death, there are no words that can determine it – Pope Francis often repeated. But there is a gesture that he himself made for Serena and her husband Matteo, the day after the death of their 5 and a half year old daughter: Angelica, affected by Trisomia 18, died on the night of March 31, 2023. She was hospitalized at the Gemelli polyclinic, just like the Pope himself, who was leaving that hospital to return to St. Mart. The gesture is to embrace them, to shake them tightly, to care about their story, their lives, and comfort them with a prayer together and a rosary donated to continue it within the walls of their home.
Indelible meeting
The invincible pain thus found refuge in the father’s arms. Serena is always excited when she remembers the moment who, after the death of Pope Francis, becomes a key to explaining his papneus. « From him will remain everything, his teachings, the weight of his gestures – says Serena – just as the meeting I had with him will remain indelible to me. Nothing ends with death, love remains, like any planted in life. These are memories that remain and continue to move on. »
« When I met Pope Francis two years ago, it was certainly a powerful moment, in which I felt very supportive, very understood and I hope that the hug will spread the good message of life. »
Condolence
Serena talks about « loss of consciousness because of pain » when she remembers how she approached the Pope. « At that moment you do not really understand the protocols, nor what is the best thing to do: simply, you have this pain to carry it and I don’t know how to do it. » « A devastating pain, the loss of a child! It is against nature, so the heart breaks. And even when time passes, it still does not heal, you just get used to living with it, moving forward with the memories, with the good things that have happened. » The hug becomes a complete medicine. « I experienced it in the hospital when we shared the pain of a child’s illness as a mother and in my life when my husband and I hugged for comfort, remembering Angelika. »
Angelika in the Pope’s wings
Serena and Matteo met with Francis three times. At the solemnity of Corpus Domini in 2019, the Pope went to the parish of Santa Maria Consolacerice in the Roman neighborhood of Casal Bertone, where he met families and children with disabilities. And they were there. Serena took Angelika in her arms, the youngest of the children present. « It came to me instinctively: at that moment a link was made between Pope Francis and Angelika. »
Then, the meeting in Gemelli, the day after the girl’s death, and then in the RAI studios at « A Sua Imagine », in a very different but always intense emotional climate. « With Matteon – Serena says – we try to have Angelika always present between us, she leads us with its light, with its value, with its presence. It is certainly painful not to be able to touch it, not to have it here, but we try to move forward anyway. »
Faith is the Gift of Angelika
« I have always had dialogue with God, I have tried and trying to make my life a gift and I think this has helped me more. With respect to my life, that of others, respect for Angelica’s life which, even in a few years with us, taught us not to surrender, to be consistent, patient. Meet Pope Francis again! ”
