The night is a symbol of darkness, of the unknown, of the lack of that light that we cannot find if we do not have a lamp and a traveling companion along the way. The night is the one that envelops our planet, wounded and violated by fratricidal struggles, by wars that continue to be organized for the lust for power and money. The night is where millions of people live who no longer have a voice to cry out about injustices and oppression.

And us? How can we continue to believe in that renewed world that does not manifest itself according to our expectations? How to recognize the signs of how good there is in everyday relationships? These are questions to which we do not always know how to answer but which urge us to look for a traveling companion who we often do not see, to recognize the universal need for a spirituality which is specific to the human being and which can make itself present if mutual love is experienced between us.

Sometimes it is short flashes of light, which shine in the most unexpected ways, even through social media, that illuminate the night. Like the story of Chiara Badano and Sara Cornelio, two friends through time.

Sara, born in 1998, little more than a child, "met" Chiara, who died at the age of 19 in 1990, in one of the many meetings that tell her extraordinary life story. He discovers her as a friend, dream companion, confidant and strong presence. Sara is a girl who lives, sings, dances, studies, has friends, grows, fascinates. Sara, at the same time, lives the daily life of a congenital disease which - not only figuratively - "takes your breath away". He lives in the certainty that "Love conquers everything" (his final thesis); lives the gift of the lung transplant, and becomes a gift itself, which she will bear witness to with books, meetings in schools, musical pieces and short films, a blog, a theatrical performance.

He lives his wonderful family, falling in love and love. Her death in 2022, at not even 24 years old, leaves all those who loved her, even simply by meeting her on Facebook, dismayed and more alone.

In her enthralling passage on this earth, Sara has in Chiara an always close friend who accompanies, encourages, supports and who "reveals" herself in the most unthinkable moments and occasions: a friend who knows how to "stand by" in crystalline joy as well as in the pain and loneliness of a hospital or intensive care unit.

In the last moments, of loneliness and weakness, Chiara's presence becomes mysteriously silent, almost elusive but perhaps for this reason more authentic and destined to become a friendship "forever".

Chiara and Sara: unique, like every story is unique.