Eliana arrived in Italy from Romania before her country had joined the European Union. She carried her four-year-old Giulio in her arms—a small, bewildered bundle amid unfamiliar sounds and colors, yet serene and smiling whenever he caught his mother's gaze.
Giulio's father, quick to recognize his son's serious difficulties, abandoned them both.
Eliana absorbed the blow, held her son close, and slowly gathered her strength. Left to fend for herself on a modest office salary, she soon realized Giulio needed care unavailable in Romania. She quit her job and moved in with her mother in a larger city. But even there, rehabilitation services were scarce and required long journeys—impossible while holding a child and trying to work enough to survive.
Eliana did not stop. She decided to reach Rome, where her brother was building a life and a family. Once again, she started over.
She hoped finally to give Giulio the care he needed, to begin the rehabilitative path that until now had depended entirely on chance.
She immediately sought to regularize her status and filed a petition with the Juvenile Court for a residence permit based on her son's medical needs. As the process neared completion, Romania entered the European Union—and Eliana no longer needed the permit. For a moment, everything seemed simpler. It was not.
As EU citizens, Eliana and Giulio lost access to healthcare for temporary foreign residents (S.T.P.). To register with Italy's National Health Service, they needed official residence status. Proving residence required demonstrating financial stability and providing housing guarantees.
Eliana stayed with her brother, but they had to find other lodgings quickly; the house was small, and her sister-in-law was expecting a child.
Meanwhile, the rehabilitation services at the local health authority continued to see Giulio. They enrolled him—not without difficulty—in a municipal preschool. It was far from home.
Each day Eliana walked a long distance to reach the school bus stop. To get him to therapy, she walked further, then took a bus. She kept every appointment with unwavering dedication. Eliana and Giulio seemed inseparable. Mother and child moved through the neighborhood and city, always in a kind of embrace—him in her arms or stroller, her speaking to him softly, watching him with love. He did not speak, but answered her with his eyes. A stranger watching might assume the boy understood nothing. His mother knew better. She had already grasped his reply.
Placing Eliana and Giulio in a family home for mothers and children would have been a good solution—it would have supported her care of him while letting her work (think of all the days Giulio fell ill and she had to stay home). But this path, too, was closed. The residence problem again: Rome could assist only registered residents.
Eliana found work as a housecleaner for a few hours a day—but off the books. Her brother, who had a legitimate lease, was not authorized to house her. The residence question remained a distant dream, with all its consequences.
These were just some of the obstacles that confronted her—in addition to the challenges of caring for a severely compromised child.
The hardships she faced were immense. It is almost difficult to recount them without risking disbelief or seeming to exaggerate.
Then one day, Eliana and Giulio moved across the city. Through word of mouth from fellow Romanians, Eliana finally found regular, documented work—only a few hours, but legitimate—and a house, though without a formal lease. For her and Giulio, it was a beginning. She hoped soon to settle the residency question.
Despite everything, I always saw Eliana smiling as she navigated each day, even when faced with thinly veiled indifference and crude racism ("What did she come to Italy for, anyway?"). Alongside those people stood many others—social workers, teachers, school staff—who were generous and welcoming. I remember clearly when Giulio entered school for the first time. His mother's expression was like light breaking through shadow. The wonder on her son's face, sitting among the other children, brought warmth to all of us.
I never heard Eliana complain or grow angry. She persisted, tenaciously, but never in anger—not even facing obstacles that should never have existed, like those placed in his way at school, or the delays in letting him eat there, despite the school's willingness. She never lost heart. And I can say without sentiment: I always saw her smiling.
I do not know how much I managed to give to Eliana and Giulio—very little, in practical terms. But they gave me much. Eliana taught me something vital: the simplicity of welcoming and loving a child, beyond the suffering and complications he brings, beyond the exhaustion of caring for him. Both of them are an extraordinary example of courage—of love paired with fierce tenacity and a strength of spirit that mother and son seemed to draw from each other, endlessly.
R.A., 2009