When life puts you to the test and makes you experience the suffering of others, sometimes you realize that you too can do something for the less fortunate. That's what happened to Luciana Lecca, 60 years old. After going through a dark period, she decided to help those in need, taking the wheel as a volunteer for the Anteas association's solidarity taxi. When her work schedule as a cook in a nursery school cafeteria allows it, she gets on board the equipped Fiat Doblò and accompanies the elderly and disabled to medical visits in clinics, hospitals, or even just to run errands. Always smiling and with a word of comfort for everyone, over time she has also become a bit of a psychologist and confidant, often collecting stories of loneliness.
The tumor
"In 2017, I found myself facing the diagnosis of breast cancer from one day to the next," she says. "It all happened in an instant. Life goes by as usual, then you put a hand on your chest, so absentmindedly, and you feel a strange little ball." At first it seemed benign. "Then it turned out that it wasn't and the ordeal began: the operation, chemotherapy, radiotherapy." At that time, Luciana Lecca was alone, "my husband was out, my son was working, so I had to go to the therapies alone and it wasn't a walk in the park. But that's when I thought of making myself available to those people who had to do the therapies I had done so that they didn't have to go to the hospital alone."
The decision
The opportunity came with Anteas. "At first I was hesitant to drive the solidarity taxi, because I had never driven a vehicle like this and I was scared. Then I took courage and this adventure began. On board, like me, there are many people with different stories, many widowed and lonely women. And when the rides become frequent, a friendship is born." Like with a lady "who tells me 'you are a sister to me'. I always accompany her to visit her husband who is in a nursing home. She confides in me, she talks to me about her life." There are also many lonely elderly people "who say that in Anteas they have found a new family. I experience this loneliness first hand and I am moved, like the ladies who come to the workshops on site. They are widows: they have no one left but they have a great desire to do."
The mission
And then there are the others. "A little girl with her mother who I often take to the clinic and a disabled boy who I accompany to the post office to collect his pension." In her life, Pinna has also cooked for the homeless "to make myself useful and give a little joy." Driving a taxi as a volunteer "is something I do with all my heart." There is no shortage of pain: "like that gentleman who I accompanied to do chemotherapy but who unfortunately later died. I will never forget him."
