"Mom and Dad, thank you for what you've given me (...) I hope that when I grow up, I'll have everything I have now." Childhood dreams captured in the green ink of a fourth-grade notebook. Carla Sebis never grew up, torn from life by the violent hand of a neighbor who molested her. She will forever be that 9-year-old girl, "sunny, lively, and full of energy, who had the right to live her life," remember her mother Maria Atzei, her father Paolo, and her sister Renata. And from today, that little girl with brown hair and hazel eyes will be the emblem of children's rights thanks to the "Carla's Days" initiative.
The pain
That fateful October 24, 1976, is an indelible wound. "It's a pain that can't be overcome," admits her mother, 79. "We live with it, trying to always see our daughter with a smile." Her family remembers every moment of that day. "It was Sunday, and in the morning we had gathered firewood," says her sister Renata, who was six at the time. "Carla had taken a log to make a school desk: she was the teacher and I was the student." Images intertwine, her voice breaks as she relives those hours, distant in time but vivid in her mind. "We had played with building blocks and built this little house," says her mother Maria as she shows off the work, guarded like a treasure. "Shortly afterward, we went to my mother's house; it was around 4:40 p.m. when I sent Carla to the oratory to see her little sister. I told her they should be home by five, but I waited in vain." On the way, she met her 16-year-old neighbor: darkness for Carla, the beginning of a nightmare for her family. "A couple of days earlier, she asked her dad to build her a little white house. Unfortunately, we actually built it, but not the one she wanted," she whispers.
The memories
A pain endured with dignity, "that event," as her mother calls it, was the watershed moment. There's a before and an after here. "Unfortunately, I don't have any good memories. I was little," says Renata. "For me, it all started that October 24th. I found myself without my sister, my dearest companion. I feel her absence, I think about what she would have been like today. I miss her." Her mother, Maria, imagines her behind a desk. "Perhaps she would have become a teacher," she explains. "She was very close to her teacher Rosettina; she loved going to school and was very good at math. Who knows, for me she'll always be the little girl who played with Barbie dolls and a mangy teddy bear she never parted with." In the house on Via Kennedy, the green walls of the living room are covered with photos of Carla. "In the closet, there are her little coat and her black apron with the blue bow. I also kept notebooks, poems, and drawings," her mother says. "I tried to keep her alive, thinking back to the good times."
The future
Throughout these years, the community ("which has always supported us," the family repeats) has lived the tragedy in silence. A few years ago, the preschool was named after Carla, and today, on the 50th anniversary, the Municipality, led by Mayor Federica Piras, has decided to transform the grief into hope. "Remembering Carla means keeping her memory alive but also creating an environment where children are listened to, respected, and protected," she explains. And so, in collaboration with the Nabui company, "Carla's Days" has taken shape, "an educational program that goes beyond commemoration," observes Roberta Falcone. The family is on the front lines, "proud that Carla's story can serve as a reminder of children's rights." A mass was celebrated last night, and on Friday the 30th, a meeting with Francesca Cavallo, author of the bestsellers "Goodnight Stories for Rebel Girls" and "Space Stories for Future Boys," will take place at the theater. On November 10th, a theatrical performance by the Arione De Falco company will take place; on the 13th, a discussion on children's rights will be held with former magistrate Gherardo Colombo; and finally, on November 20th, to mark the International Day of Children and Adolescents, workshops led by Marta Pala will be held.