Beatrice, our miracle baby
The testimony of two young married couples, Elisa and Alessandro, new members of the Primary ADMA, Valdocco.
Alessandro: Our journey in the ADMA started 5 years ago with the invitation of Fr. Roby to take part in the First Steps in the meetings for families in the first years of marriage and, like us, for engaged couples who were preparing to get married.
Elisa: I knew ADMA through the experience and stories of my parents who had been members for a few years.
A: For me it was a new dimension, even though I had grown up in a Salesian environment during my high school years, and I was intrigued by this proposal.
E: The decision to continue the journey through the monthly meetings of ADMA and the celebration of the 24th of the month was in a certain sense quite natural, normal without second thought but in some way a response to a proposal of fidelity in which we saw a great opportunity for us and for our family.
A: Thinking about our story today, we realise that from the very beginning of our marriage Mary knew how to take us by the hand and lead us to her so that we would not feel alone at the moment of our first big storm; when together with the joy of knowing that we were expecting another child after Alice, we had to face the fear of knowing that perhaps that child was not for us because it suffered from a very serious cerebral malformation, perhaps not compatible with life and almost certainly not with a ‘normal’ life as we understand it.
I still remember Elisa’s face when she explained to me the outcome of the ultrasound scan. The first feeling was one of total abandonment, but shortly afterwards, with my wife’s typical delicacy, firmness and trust in Mother Mary, she added that the Lord was entrusting this child to us because He was sure we would take care of her. These simple but challenging words were for me like a glimmer of light in the darkness. I was not alone. I had my wife and especially Mother Mary at my side. What I had to do was clear. I had to accept this seemingly desperate situation, confident that Mother Mary would not leave us alone.
E: So many maybes, human ones though, that frightened us; we kept staring at the ultrasound scans, but we were not alone. Mother Mary was standing by us as she stood by the Cross. In entrusting ourselves to Mary during those months, we savoured the sweetness of prayer made with the heart and relieved soul of one who knows that his/her requests granted. Through her we opened our hearts to the people we were close to. In the ADMA family, new friendships were born strengthening us because they rested on the common ground of Faith and trust in Mary and Jesus.
A: As if to teach us that prayer and total trust in them can do anything, almost inexplicably for the doctors, with each check-up Beatrice’s brain took an increasingly normal shape, and in April a year ago, we embraced our little miracle for the first time. Everything that had worried us earlier is proving to be harmless over time.
E: On the contrary, we had to face something we did not expect, namely, the need for surgery for a heart malformation that had never surfaced during all the pregnancy checks. We thus learnt that our anxieties often turn out to be nothing, and that everything we are and that happens to us is and remains a mystery in the hands of Providence. Even today, we are full of gratitude and amazement when we think back of the delicacy with which Mother Mary made herself concretely present in our home through the Capelita, in the days of Beatrice’s operation and her stay in the ICU, or when I would later start a new job. We recognise Her motherly presence in our history, caring but discreet, in guiding even the small and big choices of every day.
A: It really fills us with gratitude and amazement to look back today and remember that when Father Roby had asked us what imprint we would like to give to our marriage, we had identified Mother Mary and Providence as our tracks. In the ADMA, we touched with our own hands how all this can be lived out in daily life in a truly fruitful way for oneself and for others.
As Don Bosco used to say, “Mary is our guide, our teacher, our mother, and she does not do things by halves”. Here we are, then, to renew our entrustment to Her, certain that we are covered by Grace and can touch other miracles with our own hands.
