海角大神

After a week brimming with examples of giving thanks at a difficult moment, we鈥檙e also getting lessons in the power of giving back 鈥� literally and figuratively 鈥� as we head deeper into the holiday season.

Early this month, members of Open Arms Italy, which rescues migrants in the Mediterranean, found a backpack floating in the water. In it were two wedding rings engraved with two names. Wreckage nearby boded poorly for finding the owners, but the rescuers were undeterred, The New York Times . La Repubblica newspaper picked up the story, asking, 鈥淲ho are Ahmed and Doudou?鈥� And in a moment of light, a young couple surfaced聽in a reception center in Sicily, having been rescued by fishermen after a harrowing capsizing off Libya. 鈥淲e had lost everything, and now the few things we had set out with have been found,鈥� they said.

Then there were the workers at the National Roman Museum who opened a package sent from the United States and found an ancient marble fragment. Apparently it was filched from a cultural site in 2017, the Guardian . Equally inspiring was what accompanied it: the sender鈥檚 abject apology.

鈥淭he year 2020, decimated by the COVID pandemic, has made people reflect, as well as moved the conscience,鈥� museum director St茅phane Verger said. 鈥淭he fact is that three years after the theft, she returned it 鈥� it鈥檚 a very important symbolic gesture.鈥� The letter, he added, 鈥渨as quite moving.鈥�