Just last week, five-year-old Orazio walked through the doors of St. Mary’s Catholic School in Mokena to begin kindergarten.

He should be spending these days learning his new classroom, filling out his “About Me” papers, losing his first teeth, scoring goals, making new friends and deciding whether pizza, pasta or gelato deserves the top spot on his list of favorite foods.

Instead, Orazio is beginning a fight no five-year-old should ever have to face.

Just yesterday, this soccer-obsessed little boy was planning his sixth birthday party at Roma Sports Club. He was supposed to be picking out invitations and making plans for a day centered around one of his greatest loves: soccer.

And there was another date circled very big in Orazio’s world: September 9.

Orazio is a huge Lionel Messi fan and has been counting down the days until he gets to see his favorite player play in person. When you’re five, these are the things that matter. Kindergarten. Birthday parties. Soccer. Messi. Pizza and pasta from Frankie’s. And, of course, gelato.

Then, in a matter of moments, everything changed.

Yesterday evening, without warning, Orazio suffered a sudden seizure. What followed was every parent’s worst nightmare. Doctors discovered that he had bleeding in his brain caused by an arteriovenous malformation, or AVM.

In the simplest terms, an AVM is an abnormal tangle of blood vessels in the brain, almost like a tightly knotted bowl of spaghetti. Instead of blood flowing normally from arteries through tiny vessels and then into veins, an AVM creates abnormal shortcuts between them. These tangled vessels can be fragile, and sometimes they can rupture and bleed without warning.

That is what happened to Orazio.

He was emergently airlifted to the city, where a neurosurgical team performed lifesaving brain surgery to remove the accumulated blood and relieve the dangerous pressure on his brain. A portion of his skull was temporarily removed to give his brain room to swell safely as it begins to heal.

Today, Orazio remains intubated and under the close care of his neurological team as they perform additional testing, evaluate the extent of what has happened and determine the safest path forward.

There is still more ahead. His doctors will need to address the AVM itself, and when it is safe, reconstruct the portion of his skull that was temporarily removed. The exact road ahead is still being determined, but we know Orazio and his family are facing a long and uncertain recovery.

And to understand just how precious this little boy is, you have to understand the journey that brought him here.

Angela is one of my best friends from college, and I had a front-row seat to the years of hoping, heartbreak and prayer that eventually made her a mom. Angela and Orazio struggled with infertility, and this little boy was wanted and prayed for long before they ever got to hold him.

Orazio is their miracle baby.

As Angela says, “I prayed for this boy for so long. He was my strongest baby, and I know he’s going to keep fighting.”

Those of us who love him believe that, too.

He is their beautiful, funny, soccer-loving, food-loving, deeply prayed-for little boy. And he has been the center of their world from the moment he arrived.

But if you know Angela and Orazio, you also know what kind of family this is.

They are givers.

For more than 30 years, their family and Frankie’s Since 1988 have been woven into the fabric of their community. They have fed people, supported causes, donated to those in need, helped families through difficult times and stepped up again and again when their community needed them.

They are the kind of people who don’t just talk about community. They take care of theirs.

Over the last three decades, countless people and organizations have been on the receiving end of this family’s generosity, often quietly and without expectation of anything in return.

Now, it is our turn to take care of them.

Right now, Angela and Orazio belong in only one place: beside their little boy.

In the days, weeks and months ahead, there will be medical expenses, time away from their family business and work, rehabilitation and countless needs that none of us can fully anticipate yet. We cannot take away what this family is facing, but we can make sure they don’t have to carry every part of it alone.

This is our opportunity to give back to a family that has spent more than 30 years giving to everyone else.

To take care of the people who have taken care of so many.

To give Angela and Orazio the freedom to focus on the only thing that matters right now: helping their son heal.

Because Orazio should be worried about kindergarten.

He should be losing teeth.

He should be scoring goals.

He should be picking out invitations for his sixth birthday party.

He should be counting down the days until September 9 and finally getting to see Messi.

He should be eating pizza and pasta at Frankie’s and finishing it all with gelato.

He should be doing the very important work of being five.

And we are praying with everything we have that he will be doing all of those things again.

For now, his job is to heal.

His parents’ job is to stay beside him.

And ours is to surround them.

If you are able to give, please consider helping this incredible family during the most unimaginable chapter of their lives. No amount is too small. If you cannot donate, please share Orazio’s story and, above all, please pray.

Pray for complete healing for this precious little boy. Pray for wisdom and steady hands for every physician, nurse and specialist caring for him. Pray for strength, peace and endurance for Angela and Orazio as they walk a road no parent ever expects to walk.

They waited years for him.

They hoped for him.

They prayed for him.

And then they were given their miracle.

Now it’s our turn to show up for theirs.

Let’s help carry this family while they fight to get Orazio back to the very important business of being five ❤️