Oscar Massimilla's Baptism
In November David had a lovely message from an old school friend, Flavia, who he was "Facebook Friends" with but hadn't had any direct contact with for many years. Ironically we would have met at a mutual friend's wedding in the summer of 2014, however it was whilst Oscar was briefly in hospital and so we couldn't be there. Flavia wrote to explain that her little boy, who is also called Oscar, was having his Baptism in Italy later in November and that she and her husband wanted to make a contribution to Thinking of Oscar. Here is what she wrote:
"We would like to ask your permission to suggest to guests that rather than receiving gifts we would prefer for them to contribute to Thinking of Oscar. Both my husband Massimo and I feel that this is the best example we can give our little Oscar - yes, our sons have the same beautiful name. We know that our little boy will be proud one day to have contributed, even in a small and indirect way, to improving the lives of other children and in honouring the memory of your son."
Naturally we accepted their generous and thoughtful gesture. We later heard back from Flavia to say that Oscar's Baptism had been a very special day and that, staggeringly, their friends and family had incredibly generously donated more than 2,000 Euro towards Thinking of Oscar.
As Hannah has written many times and, as we were reminded only today by another new friend, people have their own lives to lead, their own challenges and worries, their own families and other friends to take care of and have fun with. They don't have the capacity to think about us or others all of the time and that is just how life works. We, of course, live each day with the knowledge that we will never see one of our children again in our lifetime and that's a very isolating place to be in. However just knowing that someone is thinking of us, or rather, is Thinking of Oscar, may seem like a small thing but has a huge impact on how we are able to go about our life.
To Flavia and Massimo, Thank you for thinking of us and Thinking of Oscar. We will ensure that, when your Oscar is old enough to understand, he knows that the money raised on his Christening day made a tangible difference to the lives of other children.
