The hospital had given me permission to stay at my father’s bedside overnight, as he was critically ill. During the night a nurse came to ask if I needed anything. I answered in a low voice that I needed nothing.
My father beckoned me to come closer to him.  He had difficulty speaking but in a very weak voice said: ‘You didn’t thank the nurse properly. Go and tell her that it was very kind of her to be concerned about you.'   And so I did as he asked.  In the brightly lit corridor of the Gemelli Hospital, as I returned to my father, I reflected how, although in great pain, he could have been aware that I hadn’t thanked her properly. He continued to teach me, as a father does, the important things in life.  The real lesson for me was the paradox of seeing a broken body perfected by love. That place of death, where each room was full of suffering, was suddenly transformed into a cathedral of light. I could see in the purity of my father's love, the tangible sign of the One who has conquered death.
 When my father left us the next day, my experience was not one of death but of the resurrection becoming ever more present here on earth.
And it was the day of the Epiphany!

T.M. (Italy)