Better the Little Prince than the Prince Charming

It was a prince charming the one I was searching for. A prince charming who turned out in a boy with drug addiction problems, with who I remained pregnant. I had an abortion. He died for AIDS. I found myself alone. To talk is Nicoletta. A woman now mature who, telling her adolescence, remembers with bitterness her mistakes.

I started to abuse of drugs. Already when I was with him and also after his death. I reached the point to say to myself “I can definitively die or I can start to go up again”. There, I met a man with a past similar to mine, Daniele. Daniele understood me, I understood him, we both had problems. After an year I was pregnant.

Now the little Samuele is 7 years old. With his blonde crewcut hair and his fluttering scarf in winter days, he’s the exact copy of the Little Prince of the story written by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. His existence itself is a witness of life. Yes, because Samuele had not to exist. My first thought was to have a second abortion – Nicoletta continues – because to the notice to be pregnant the bottom fell out of my world. I was already 42 years old, I abused drugs and I was full of problems. Daniele was affected by a degenerative disease of the liver, he was HIV positive and he hadn’t a job. We were two persons who were struggling to look after ourselves: how could we have a child?

From the abortion request to the day of surgery there are 30 days. One month in wich everything changes for Nicoletta. It is the little Samuele himself to make himself to feel important. I did the ultrasound: I saw the little but already formed child, I heard the beat of his heart. It was like if he was talking to me. Then I talked with the people of te Center for Ait to Life of Brescia. There I changed my idea, because I understood that I would be helped. I understood that I would be free: free to have my child despite the difficulties.

Samuele was born HIV positive – she continues – but he became negative during the first year. Even in the hardest moments of his 7 years, even after Daniele’s death, I never thought “Why did I do that?”. The real help of CAV, the volunteers of which always were next to me, wasn’t the economic one: it was to have next to me people who seemed to love Samuele even before I understood to love him.

Andrea Cuminatto

Leggi questo articolo in italiano: Meglio il piccolo principe che il principe azzurro