"Hold on to life, don't waste a single moment": letter from a teacher to her students following the tragedy in Crans-Montana

The Liceo Virgilio in Milan is going through a period of deep sorrow following the New Year's Eve tragedy in Crans-Montana involving four of their students. The event has left a mark on both boys and girls and the entire school community.

"We have a class that is mentally unwell," Principal Roberto Garroni told us.

Harsh but necessary words that convey the magnitude of a collective trauma and the urgency of immediate intervention to prevent this wound from growing into something even more serious over time.

The school decided to put care at the center of its actions and put in place a structured course with specialized psychologists, involving both teachers and families. The goal is to build a real support network that can guide the children through the shock and pain.

"Our focus now is on working with the children," Garroni reiterated, stressing the need to fully expose responsibility and openly support the families' demand for justice. But first and foremost is the emotional health of the students, which cannot be left to chance or the passage of time.

The risk affects not only those who were there on the night of the accident, but also those who have lost a friend and are suddenly faced with the fragility of life. For some, guilt may arise because they survived; for others, anxiety, uncertainty and fear of losing control of what's happening. This is why psychologists recommend long-term monitoring: after all, children are at a developmental age and are more vulnerable, and it cannot be taken for granted that 'it will pass with time'. They need constant attention, customized pathways and an adult community that takes responsibility for truly protecting their emotional future.

The letter

In the meantime, a touching letter written by a teacher working at the school is circulating on the Web, addressed to all boys and girls: words that celebrate life, that instigate holding hands in times of suffering and do not close the door to hope.

A letter that opens the door to hope

The letter opens up a real space to talk about life and death, without rhetoric or moralizing, staying within a reality in which pain and hope are not excluded, but coexist.

Eccola:

"Crans' tragedy forces us to review the hierarchies of our fears and our anger. All the problems that seem insurmountable to us seem to take on a new dimension in the face of death, in the face of an unwavering 'never again.' The anxiety that often besets you (and that also besets us adults), the anxiety about a future that is not yet clear or definable, can perhaps be reduced by the thought that we can still think about the future, that the very fact that we can look to the future, even if with some anxiety, means that we are alive.

Here, let us attach ourselves, attach ourselves to life, honor it by giving each moment its full meaning, waste none. Umberto Saba concluded in one of his finest poems by saying that he always felt strongly and importantly 'of life as the painful love'; the painful love of life, of loving life even when it involves pain, failures, falls, difficulties. And Saba knew many of sorrows, starting with the absence of a father who had abandoned him at a young age and a Jewish background that made him a victim of racial laws.

It's not easy to always love life.

There are times when it seems like the difficulties are insurmountable and the pain unbearable. But when they are there, it means we are there. Love life even when you think back to your peers who are no longer among us and when you think of the enormous difficulties (physical and psychological) of your severely burned comrades.

You, of course, are not to blame.

You are of course not to blame for their pain, nor do you have to feel 'guilty' because you are alive and they are not.

And it's normal if you perhaps feel so much anger these days, so much frustration in the face of something incomprehensible and completely unfair.

I don't know how to channel this anger, I don't know how to overcome your bewilderment.

I only know that you (we) should wake up every morning knowing that life, every day, is a gift, to be appreciated and used to its fullest, in relationship with yourself and with others, without wasting time on silly arguments, on resentments that spoil relationships (with parents, with friends), enjoying what each moment can give us; Even the foggy days in Milan, the tough mornings at school, the lessons that don't go well, the teachers you can't stand, the parents who interfere with your life, that too is life."

(MP/©GreenMe.it/translation and adaptation: The Global Lifestyle/Illustration: Unsplash)