Katia, 10 years old
"My mother told me that when I was 11 months old I could stand on my feet, holding on to my bed. I don’t remember that, but it must have been really nice. I can’t walk; as a matter of fact I never did.
My mother and father love me very much and they would do anything for me. They took me to the seaside and to the mountains, we laugh and tell stories together and I like it very much when they explain everything to me. They have never told me “You’re too small for this, we’ll explain this when you’ll grow up.”
I have been to the nursery school, now I go to school, where I get along well with the other children; they help me, because the teacher asked them to.
Still, everybody asks me why I am sad.
How can I help being sad when I miss out on so many things? Because I am sensitive and I catch colds very fast I wasn’t able to keep the parrot I had received for my birthday from some friends. I also couldn’t keep the cat from Cabral. But what hurts me most is that I can’t walk.
I can’t walk, and my sister can’t walk either.
Sometimes when we play, my mother walks away. I know she leaves, so she can go to another room and cry, so that we don’t see her.
We were once at Hospice and the girls organised a disco. Everyone was jumping around - I was the only one in a wheelchair. Ligia saw that I was sad and took me dancing with her, but I danced in my chair. I like it at the Hospice because no one is mocking us there and there are other children with different diseases. We laugh, make jokes and do all kind of interesting things.
I hope that one day I will be able to get out of the wheelchair, and if not, I want to go up to Heaven, and to God, where I will be perfectly safe."
