"Our favorite son has left us." It is the pain of a mother from Teulada, Luciana Gallus, in a long message posted on social media to say goodbye to Mattia Montei, the 33-year-old suffering from spastic tetraparesis.
A few years ago the woman had written to Pope Francis to tell how the State and the institutions had forgotten her son. He had asked the Sardinia Region for help to purchase an orthopedic bed, but had received much less than what was needed to purchase it. The pontiff had telephoned her. Initially Luciana thought it was a joke, then the first words and the certainty that it was all true. From the Holy Father he had received great comfort and the promise to remain in his thoughts and prayers.
«Mattia lost his natural mother when he was seven months old – the woman explained – I married his father and I love Mattia as if he were my son: children belong to those who raise them, Mattia is a choice of the heart, a choice of love ».
That boy who couldn't see, couldn't speak, couldn't walk and needed to be cared for in everything is now no longer here. «A part of us parents dies with him… - Luciana writes on Facebook – it is the inversion of the natural order of things, the loss of many future projects, today I think part of our life is over (…). Every parent expects their child to live a long time, for our angel Mattia, even if seriously ill, seriously handicapped and ill, we would have wanted him with us." «If only I could whisper to him “I love you” just once more, I would do it now in the silence of this terrible night... I'm with him... I dressed him up... a bad dream... he looks like an angel in a white casket. With us there is only the ticking of the hands of an alarm clock, a ticking that is amplified inside me... my soul trembles." Luciana then thinks about the memories, «the gift that God left us for 33 years, yes 33, the years of Christ... and on the day of Saint Anthony the Lord called him to himself. I no longer have the heart, now my beloved son has taken it with him. The carefree Luciana is now a grieving, devastated, heartbroken mother, because my choice of love has left me, emptied, taking away the best part of me. God give me the strength to survive this tragedy."
