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Prayer Vigil for World Youth Day 2017
Pompeo Barbieri tells his story:
“I am not afraid any longer of the future and what life has in store for me.”
With these words, Pompeo Barbieri concluded his witness in the Prayer Vigil with Pope Francis, in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, in preparation for the XXXII World Youth Day.
Pompeo, originally from San Giuliano di Puglia, spoke about his life since October 31, 2002, when, on a normal morning at school, “at 11.33 a.m. there was a terrible tremor which made everything tremble (it was an earthquake), and the classroom collapsed on us… In a second we were buried under mounds of rubble, “Pompey recalled,
“thinking back to the firemen who dragged me out from under the rubble, then I woke up in the hospital, my life was in danger for three months. ” “Only later did my parents tell me that my teacher and 27 classmates had died in that earthquake”: and Pompeo’s cousin was under that rubble too. “I was alive, while they were dead… why?” he asked himself. “Even though I could have let myself despair and I had the desire to react, I was aware that I had to live even for those who were gone”. “So even when they told me I would not walk again I was able to face this with more courage,” added Pompeo, “I grew stronger and felt unbeatable.”
At 18, however, a medical problem forced him to enter into dialysis: “I felt lost and thought it was not right! Once again I was fortunate as my dad gave me his kidney,”
Pompeo said, revealing that “I would not change almost anything in my life and that tragedy, I just wish my friends were here too, only that.”
“This wheelchair has taught me to see beauty in small things and remember how blessed I am every day,” he confided, confessing that “I have a dream: to take part in the Paralympics one day.”