This book is a devoted tribute to the work of Dr. Silvia Maffei, a child neuropsychiatrist, written by Lucina, a mother who, through her, learned to see beyond her daughter Marta's disability. Yet Lucina does not shy from the harder truth: as a mother, she insists on acknowledging how difficult acceptance can be. "I have never met a woman happy to have a child who is different," she writes.
From that essential admission—and thanks to Silvia's rare gift for family care—Lucina came to understand that Marta, despite grave sensory and cognitive disabilities, could "exist, grow, change." She began to imagine a genuinely adult life for her daughter and, together with her husband Mariano, took the steps needed to make that vision real for Marta and others like her (see the article on page 16 about Associazione Vedere Oltre). Silvia believed in this firmly.
A small, dense, and sorrowful book—yet one full of trust—written in the wake of Silvia's untimely death, it touches on many themes and raises crucial questions for anyone living through a similar experience or wishing to draw near to it. Lucina wrote it because, as Silvia had urged, we must "leave a trace and mark the path, or everything will be forgotten and our efforts wasted."
Cristina Tersigni, 2016