When 13 years ago Angelica, on her second day of life, was struck by neonatal cytomegalovirus septicemia, the doctors in the ward thought she would not be able to make it through the night. The calm with which we faced those moments was due precisely to the grace of God and the solidarity of all the brothers of our prayer group who prayed for an entire night for the child's salvation. We decided to have her baptized immediately. The sacrament was administered to her by the nurse inside the incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit.
The next day, to the great joy of all of us, the acute crisis had passed and the child continued to improve until she was discharged after twenty days. Today she is an intelligent, pleasant girl, happy to be alive, even though she was left deaf. She leads a normal and full family life, and has established with her older siblings (Veronica, 18, and Leonardo, 21) a relationship full of love and trust. Our children were in fact the first and most important collaborators, patient and above all encouraging in the long, tiring, and at times exhausting work of speech rehabilitation from the very earliest years of her life. They are her dearest friends, her confidants and her constant playmates.
For all of this we thank the Lord, who has allowed us to face the various difficulties one by one with serenity, and who leads us by the hand along a path with moments of darkness and light, calmly making important decisions for her life.
With the scout troop, she took part in games, various activities, and camps
With the scout troop, she took part in games, various activities, and campsOne of the most important decisions was certainly the choice of school. After various attempts through speech therapists and specialized rehabilitation centers, which were costly and not sufficiently effective, we enrolled her (she was 6 years old by then) at the Istituto Gualandi, founded specifically for the deaf, which made it possible for her to follow a regular, highly specialized course of studies. Angelica attended school on a normal school schedule, which allowed her to have time to lead a family and social life like other children. It seems very important to me that parents be thoroughly informed about the educational opportunities that exist for their deaf children, so that they may then, in full freedom, make the choices they consider best.
By attending this school Angelica became calmer, felt understood, learned to speak, to form her first sentences, to express her feelings and desires, and began to have her first friendships beyond the family circle. Where the family could not reach, the school provided to fill the gaps, also from the point of view of religious education with appropriate catechism, so that the child was able to develop a truly deep and heartfelt personal relationship with the Lord. She received with full awareness both the Eucharist at the age of nine, and, last May, Confirmation.
Subsequently, to improve her integration among those with normal hearing, she was accepted in the parish among the Ladybirds and together with them she took part in games, various activities, and summer camps. The whole group was enriched and was happy with this experience, even though, as she moved up a level, Angelica decided, to everyone's great regret, to discontinue the activities due to a gap in verbal communication that had developed between her and her peers and that she was not yet able to overcome.
Her siblings are her dearest friends, her confidants and her constant playmates
Her siblings are her dearest friends, her confidants and her constant playmatesSports activities (swimming, skiing) also played their part in Angelica's harmonious psychophysical development, making her increasingly confident in her own abilities. In particular, swimming is her passion — there is nothing that makes her happier than a good dive into the water, where she is truly in her element.
When, in recent times and also with the end of compulsory schooling in view, the first anxieties about her future at school and at work were beginning to make themselves felt, we had the opportunity to discover a very stimulating and unexpected reality. We attended the International Congress of the Deaf "The Deaf Way," held in Washington from 9 to 14 July last. We were able to see what the world of the deaf is like outside Italy, how many opportunities exist for them, what a change in mentality has developed in the United States regarding the relationship between the hearing and the non-hearing, what a wealth of artistic and cultural expression by the deaf has been achieved in various parts of the world.
If there is interest, it would be possible to organize a moment of deeper reflection and communication of what we have learned, on these pages or elsewhere.
I believe it is very important to change our view of the deaf person's «handicap» in relation to the world of «normal» people. Indeed, American deaf people proclaim their own cultural identity with their own language (ASL), with their own history that makes them comparable to a true people of linguistic minority. We were able to see in our daughter the joy of identifying with a great multitude of people in her same condition (about 7,000 participants from 76 countries), the joy of feeling completely at ease and free from those frustrations that inevitably arise with the world of the hearing.
We came to recognize that, as could be read on the t-shirts for sale at the Congress, «Deaf people can do anything — except... hear».
- Maria Monica Rossi, 1989
From a school essay by Angelica: Trip to AmericaAfter the trip to Boston, we left for Washington where there are many deaf people at the Gallaudet University.
A deaf Black woman spoke with my father because maybe when I am 18 I will go to Washington to the «Gallaudet» University.
My father bought the book of signs. I learned a bit and copied the signs from the book...
Every day my parents went to the deaf people's meeting, while me and my sister played between ourselves. A deaf Arab man spoke with me and my sister and we became friends. I learned the deaf alphabet. My parents and my sister also learned the deaf alphabet and a few signs. I really liked meeting so many deaf people, because they are nice.