TAmong many images of mud and destruction there is one that does not leave me: the photo of the rescue of a newborn with his little sister. “While we were pulling them onto the helicopter in a terrible wind, the two-year-old girl caressed and cheered up her crying little brother,” says the firefighter who rescued them. For me, empathizing is immediate.
Danda Santini director of “iO Donna” (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
The personal details match: it’s us, it’s our family. Two grandparents who lend a hand with their grandchildren, a two-year-old girl and a recently born brother, a great-grandmother (who knows if they too call her “la bis”) who is over ninety. In the midst of the flooding of their lands, panic, the frantic request for help. Even the parents are trapped at home that cursed day, with the burden of responsibility for the little ones and the elderly.
They talk excitedly, you have to do it quickly and well, take the essentials and forget the rest, stay calm. But how do you do it in that silence that smells of disgrace? And there the little miracle happens. I imagine that in their excitement they turned to the older girl: «Stellina, take a look at your brother for a moment while we check that we have everything, now they’re coming to get us, keep him quiet.’ And Stellina will have obeyed. She will have approached her little brother of a few months, she will have lowered her voice, indeed, she will have put on another one, that of her mother, she will have stroked him gently on his still bald head: «Be good, you heard, now they’re coming. Don’t be afraid, I’m here. I’ll help you, okay?” The newborn feels her, calms down: when the rescuers arrive they are the calmest, close, almost embracing. The newborn only whimpers when they detach him from his sister for an instant.
They are so small that one stretcher is enough for both of themthe stroller with the baby on one side, her on the other. The photo of the Corriere della Sera gives them back to us like thisa little blurry, held in place by the straps, before being hoisted into the helicopter. Safe, like the whole family.
I seem to hear it, that childish but mature voice, the same one that my two and a half year old niece uses to address her little sister of a few months when mom and dad ask her to look after her. And the moody and inappetent little girl who is with us turns into a thoughtful little woman full of attentions: «Here I am, I’m coming. I’ll help you, okay? Eat the jelly, she’s good. So, good job », she whispers while she expertly feeds it and I look at her in amazement.
Maria Montessori was right: woe to talk to children as if they didn’t understand anything, woe to underestimate them. They already know, by instinct, by spirit of observation, by imitative skills, more than we think. If in the right conditions, they know how to concentrate and take care of others and things from a very young age. With a tenderness that leaves you speechless. “The child is the teacher,” said Montessori. Perhaps it would be enough to learn from them in order not to spoil the world.
iO Woman © REPRODUCTION RESERVED