«I'm pregnant!» – with these two words, a woman's life begins anew, full of dreams and plans.
Each of us, in those months of waiting, imagines a beautiful future for the small creature of God we carry in our heart. We want our child to be the most beautiful, the most intelligent, the most well-mannered, the most gifted of all. Months pass, days, hours... «Here I am.» The baby arrives... What joy!
Then the doctor comes. He cannot meet your eyes. «I'm sorry,» he says, «but your child was born with an illness.»
The world spins. The sky turns black and crashes down on you. And in your mind there is only one question, one that drives you mad: «Why? Why me? Why has the Lord punished me? How can I carry this cross?»
I was in despair. With my son's birth, my life was over. My career as a programmer, my world – it all shrank to the size of a hospital room. My deepest dream was to hear my baby call me «mama,» to watch him take his first steps, to see joy on his face instead of pain.
Until he was six, we did everything, gave everything, to help him grow. My son learned to walk. He began to speak. But his mental development was delayed. Because of grave family and financial hardship, I had to make an impossible choice: I left my son with my husband and my older daughter and came to Italy to work – to earn enough to pay for his care. Eight long years passed before I could finally bring Igor here to live with me. How many sleepless nights. How many tears. How hard I had to work to save enough for family reunification...
At last I managed it. My son Igor arrived in Naples to live with me. I was overjoyed! But a new and even harder chapter of my life began. Igor, perhaps, believed I did not love him. He tested me constantly. And he suffered greatly from missing his Ukrainian friends. He cried. He hid under the bed. He cried and cried. I saw no way out, no light at the end of the tunnel.
Only faith kept me from breaking down, from making terrible mistakes. Slowly, I tried to understand what I could do to make sure my son would not feel alone. I knew that in Ukraine he had belonged to a community – a place where young people like him gathered with friends his own age. So I began searching for something like that here in Italy. I found it: the Faith and Light community for people with special needs. And this community became my light in the darkness of the tunnel.
For more than five years, we have been part of the Naples community. We have found a true family. We have become the richest people in the world! We have countless real friends – generous, devoted, who love us and stand by us even in difficult times.
Faith and Light changed my life. It changed what I value. Every day we wait for the next community gathering, the next Mass together, the next pilgrimage, celebration, or summer camp. Over these years we have made friends with other communities across the Campania region and throughout Italy.
Igor is loved, and he does not feel that he is different. Because of this friendship, he has become sociable and expressive. I see him happy, joyful, always smiling. And that makes me happy too. We commit ourselves to everything our movement does, because this has become true life for me. We have been to Lourdes and met so many new friends from communities in Spain. I attended an international gathering in Leeds. It was unforgettable, moving. I came home even richer in friendship.
Now I can say with pride that I have friends all over the world: from Georgia to Canada, from Switzerland to Poland. And all of this because of my special son! Now I treat my son as a great treasure, not as a cross to bear.
