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Rocio says that when she met Lucila Saridi, a teacher at the school support center where she went after school, she knew immediately that He wanted her to be his mother. It was April 2023, girl I was 9 years old and lived in a house For boys and girls deprived of parental care in Bahía Blanca. “She was as good as a gentleman. I dreamed of a mother like her,” he said via video call. Two years later, his dream came true.: Next to him is Lucilla, who is no longer his teacher, but rather his mother.
Lucilla remembers well the first time she saw her daughter now. “The lessons started a few weeks ago. Ruchi stood hand in hand with the principal and asked me, ‘Will you be my teacher?’ and he hugged me.” From that moment, this woman, who was 37 years old at the time, says, He felt like he wanted to take care of her.. She never imagined where this need would take her.
A little over a month ago, Rocio’s dream of turning them into a family through adoption finally comes true. In addition, he supported the girl’s desire to change her name and start calling herself Rocio. “Starting today Your name is Rocío Maria Saridi, as I thought, felt and asked. I am happy that after walking together this time and choosing each other to be family, she can also name you as her daughter to take care of you, support you and ensure your overall well-being,” the judge wrote to the girl when notifying her of the ruling.
When her path crossed that of Rocío, Lucila was a companion of two children with disabilities and a teacher at the Complementary Education Center (CEC) in Bahía Blanca, a state space that promotes school learning and promotes the educational inclusion of children who need this supplement according to the schools they attend. “I was an alternative. It was a gritty group, but little by little we created something beautiful,” he recalls.
Once Rocio joined the group, the emotional connection between teacher and student began to grow. “Roo wanted to sit at my desk every day and it was hard for me to say no, but it got me in trouble with other people who got jealous,” Lucilla says as her daughter laughs. As the weeks passed, Lucila began to imagine herself as an emotional reference in the girl’s life after school hours. “I wanted to be someone who could help her in her life,” he recalls.
So it was like that Lucilla began visiting Rocío at her home. Sometimes, when they left the CEC, the two of them went to Lucilla’s house together. The house allowed them to share that moment: from 5 to 8 p.m. “I took the opportunity and did her laundry or fixed her supplies and her backpack. Then I took her to dinner at home,” she says. Other times they went out for a walk. “On one of those outings, Ru got in the car and said to me:I want you to adopt me‘. For me it was very powerful. I knew nothing about it, and I didn’t even know I could adopt on my own. “Being a mother has been a huge responsibility for me,” she says.
But the demand, she admits, didn’t scare her. Nor is the fact that the girl received a unique disability certificate, despite the fact that there was no clear diagnosis for her due to the loss of that information. “I am a university technician in therapeutic and psycho-educational accompaniment. Working side by side with children facing challenges is what I love to do most. I am convinced that We all have the right to a full life regardless of our condition.explains the woman, from the home she shares with her daughter.
When she thinks about the request that Rocio made to her that day in the car, Lucilla is convinced that the girl expressed a mutual and shared feeling that happened naturally. “Rucci’s desire to be with me is the same as my desire to be with her. It’s been that way from the beginning, so we did everything necessary to make it work,” he says.
The first times were not easy. “Ruchi had difficulty integrating certain social norms and behaving well at school.. “Also understand that you have to respect what other people say,” he recalls. “I told him, ‘Well, you want to have a mother, and you want to have a mother, too: that sometimes they tell you no, or that you have to listen.’”
As they spent more time together, Lucilla took on the task of taking care of Rocío’s health as much as her own. “During that period I was able to get him to start treatment with a speech therapist because of the difficulty he had when speaking and also… We started seeing neurologists looking for a diagnosis Shows me where we stand.
After consultations and studies. Rocio was diagnosed with generalized global developmental disorder. “All the way, I was talking to the house manager and reporting to him,” Lucilla says.
When the judicial protection procedure under which she was separated and protected from her biological family for six months expired, the director suggested that they renew it, but in Lucila’s home. That was in November 2023, and since then they have been living together.
“Initially, I took a leave of absence and withdrew from the CEC so we could share more time,” Saridi recalls. Lucilla posted, on her Instagram account, a video clip of the moment they went to bid farewell to their colleagues. In front of all her students, Ms. Lucilla said: “One farewell to Rocio and the last farewell to me because I am going to take a very, very, very long leave because from today I am Rocio’s mother.”
The video is titled: “The Moment When I Became Miss Honey,” in reference to the book “Matilda” by British writer Roald Dahl, in which a girl’s teacher adopts a girl.
Now Rocio, 11, is finishing elementary school and has a companion who helps her with her schoolwork and acquiring certain skills and habits, such as learning the route between her house and her grandmother’s house, two blocks away from each other; Take the bus, make the bed, or cook basic meals.
“Next year I’m starting high school and I have to deal with myself. This makes me a little nervous,” she says. She says her partner’s name is Lolly and that she also does crafts.
Lucilla, now 39, is thrilled with all the progress her daughter has made. “It’s exciting to see everything that has progressed over these two years. For example, today she is a girl You can go to school unaccompanied“My goal is that in the long run, with all this encouragement, Rue will be an independent person,” he says. There will be things I will achieve and other things I will not be able to achieve, but what I do not achieve will not be due to lack of encouragement.
Lucilla believes that if her daughter wants to live alone tomorrow and doesn’t know how to do the basics, she won’t be able to make it happen. But these words take on a special meaning when the person saying them has a daughter with a disability. “Mothers and fathers of boys and girls with disabilities We have to help them take responsibilitieseven if it is the most basic. This is not taught overnight, or when your child is already an adult. “You start as a child,” he says.
Then the mother and daughter tell the latest situation. Rocio got angry at her mother because she didn’t wash her graduation shirt. She says while her daughter looks on: “But she did not put it in the laundry basket, and this is a necessary step before washing the clothes. Now she has learned that.”
“I aim to use these tools I instill in her to allow her to be independent tomorrow. We hope you have the freedom to choose“Sometimes you ask him what he wants to eat and he doesn’t tell you.”
“I’m telling you I want to eat pasta,” her daughter says in a low voice.
“If it were up to you, she would live on noodles,” her mother answers her, with a gesture that wants to be a reproach, but she stops midway when her daughter, the girl who chose her name and her mother chose her, hugs her.