Thiago's Story
I’m going to tell you the story of Thiago, a tale as moving as it is extraordinary. On the very day Thiago was born, his father, unable to shoulder the responsibilities of parenthood, kicked both Thiago, a newborn, and his mother out of the house, abandoning them on the street and declaring he wouldn’t support them.
With the only coins she had in her pocket, Thiago’s mother managed to board a bus to Barbacena. There, her heart heavy with worry for little Thiago, she began begging on the streets, hoping to gather enough to buy milk for her baby. Unfortunately, her breasts no longer produced enough milk to nourish little Thiago.
Days passed when, finally, a seemingly compassionate family offered them refuge in their home. However, the illusion of relief soon transformed into a tragic reality. The mother appeared to be exploited in exchange for room and board for herself and the child, and so she sank into a vortex of alcohol dependency, and the two found themselves back on the street.
When Thiago was 5 years old, the local police, tired of seeing both him and his mother sleeping on the sidewalk, took Thiago and brought him to us at the “San Michele Arcangelo”. That’s where we met. Thiago was one of the first children I received and with whom I formed a beautiful bond. At that time, I was still building what would become the current “San Michele Arcangelo” Mission. I remember he never wanted to go to school and always hid in my car, then spent the whole day with me. And so, when I realized hew as hidden in my car I was already on my way to the “San Michele” which was under construction, there was nothing left to do but take him with me and we would spend the day together. Because of this, Thiago remembers every detail of the construction. In 2003, we finally moved in when the work was completed. Thiago was about 8 years old.
Taking a step back, I remember one time his mother came to the Mission completely drunk, and Thiago, feeling ashamed of the laughter of the other children who were laughing because his mother couldn’t stand up she was so drunk, he hid behind my legs. His mother then left that day.
After many years, his mother recovered from alcohol and rented a house right next to the San Michele Arcangelo. Having now fully recovered, she asked me if she could rebuild her life with Thiago. On that occasion, she asked me if I remembered that day when she had shown up at the Mission drunk and Thiago didn’t want to see her. She added: “That day changed my life because I realized that alcohol had taken everything away from me and especially the only thing I had, my son”. From that day on, she never wanted to drink again because she wanted to see her son sober. And so she started her life again with a small job, simple but that allowed her to support herself, and Thiago gradually began to spend more time with her, first a few evenings, then whole days, until, now a teenager, he moved in with her at her house.
Every Saturday afternoon they used to come to visit me on foot because on that day I would stay in my quiet office to do other things. They always arrived around 3 p.m. and his mother always had a series of actions that she invariably performed when I opened the door. The first was the request to bless her even though I always told her that I couldn’t, that only God can bless, but that we could pray together which was in fact what we did. Finally, when they left, she always greeted me with the same phrase: “You know that for me there is God in heaven and you on earth”. And every time she repeated these same actions, until one Saturday, entering, she didn’t greet me, she asked me as always for a blessing and I as always told her that I couldn’t bless her. At that point, she stood in front of me and asked me to confirm if, as Thiago’s dad, I would continue to be his dad in case something happened to her. I reassured her that nothing could happen to her as she was healthy, she was 40 years old, so everything would be fine and she shouldn’t worry. But she was determined to have this confirmation, if I would continue to be Thiago’s dad if something happened to her. I told her that I would always be. At that point she got up, reminding me of the promise I had just made and left without saying goodbye. The night of 5 days later, around 3 a.m., she died of a stroke.
After that sad event, Thiago returned to the “San Michele Arcangelo” and from there he had a beautiful story. He marries a woman, adopting the son she already had with her previous husband, who died burned in front of her, and shortly after they also have a daughter together. Over time, he also becomes the cook of the “San Michele Arcangelo”. Everything was going well, until one night a tragedy took him away… one evening while driving home with his family they slipped into a river with the car because of too much mud and they all drowned.
The pain, to this day, has been and continues to be terrible. Thiago had the characteristic of always smiling, at all times, and usually sat with me at lunch because I ate at different times like him when he finished preparing lunches for the children. In those moments, he knew exactly that when I, with a gesture, rubbed my face, it was because I was worried about money and this happened almost every day. But Thiago always told me: “I don’t know how, but one day I will help you financially with the Mission, maybe I’ll win the lottery, but anyway I’ll help you”.
During the Covid pandemic, we went through perhaps the most difficult moment of all because I no longer knew who to turn to in order to keep the Mission going and we were close to bankruptcy because it was impossible to sustain the Mission itself with its expenses, debts and without any more help from anywhere for what was happening in the world because of Covid.
In this disheartening scenario, there was a couple from the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil, who had announced that they would be coming to visit me at the Mission. The night before their arrival, Thiago appeared to me in a dream and gave me 2 cisterns of water, very beautiful. So I asked him how he could give them to me since he was dead unfortunately and he laughed and told me to remember all the times I told him he would help me. But I insisted and told him also how he could have given them to me since he didn’t have much in life. But Thiago smiled as he used to do in life and confirmed: “I always promised you that I would help you and now I’m helping you”.
I woke up and told my wife the dream, telling her what I thought, that the two people who were about to arrive to visit us were the two cisterns that Thiago had given me in the dream. This is what came to my mind thinking back to the dream. And in fact it was so, the couple was the one that allowed the San Michele Arcangelo to get back on its feet and move forward in that very difficult moment. He was a banker and financed several renovations and then supported the Mission until the end of the Covid pandemic.