The witness.
There is a word for who loses a spouse, there is a word for who loses a parent, but there is no word for who loses a child. Federica Edwige Lovascio tried to find meaning, not with a word, but with a book, “Gounou: story of an infinite love”, dedicated to her little Gounou Gabriele Baba, who passed away on 7 July 2020, only 42 days away. life, for a rare form of meningitis.
A family known and loved in Spresiano is that of mother Federica, 34, formerly an employee of the Benetton Foundation and today acclaimed nail artist internationally, her husband Gounou Baba, originally from Benin and working with the Belgian Red Cross, and their first son Taane Giovanni, who is now 2 and a half years old.
the motivation
“I wrote this book to share it with all the people who experience perinatal bereavement”, explains mother Federica Edwige, “but also with all those who surround them and often do not know how to behave, and with all women who face pain, both in the condition of mothers or not, because I do not speak of death but of love, emptying the taboos of illness, suffering, lack, to fill them with new awareness ».
The text enjoys the preface of the well-known anthropologist Marco Aime, who brought together Federica and her future husband Baba in 2011 for the “Carlo Scarpa” award, who that year went to the village of Taneka Beri in Benin.
«Three years of life pass through the pages», continues mother Federica Edwige, «from the beginning of my love story in 2017, after six years of courtship, to the birth of my first child. Then the second pregnancy in full lockdown and the happiness of having given birth to Gounou, which means “lion”, a name honored for having fought against the infection in the long weeks of hospitalization, and having left the scene dispensing a truly infinite strength, which I feel growing in me day by day ».
the wound
How can you manage to relieve yourself of such great pain? “Everyone asks me, but I have no spell, magic wand or keystone”, replies mom Federica, “I only understood why my son” made the decision “to stay with me for only 42 days: his passage, even if it was so short, it changed the lives of many people ».
“A neonatologist told me: ‘Your son arrived when I was leaving my profession, and I decided to stay.’ Many parents who read my story on a poster in the neonatal pathology ward at Ca ‘Foncello, were deeply comforted, and I myself experienced the purest form of the feeling “love”, which until before I was looking for “outside”, in the partner, in the children, in the family, and now I have found myself inside: Gounou made me understand how important it is to love myself, he healed my scar and he never made me feel a day of anger ».
hello Lapo
The author attended the “Ciao Lapo” mutual aid group, made up of parents that she defines as “special”, because they are fathers and mothers of children who will remain perfect and ideal in their hearts. «The mission that my son left me», Federica Edwige Lovascio closes, «is to spread love and hope, just what society most misses now».
the book
“Gounou story of an infinite love” comes out in bookstores for Infinito Edizioni next week, Thursday 15 July, and will be presented at villa Giustiniani Recanati in Spresiano on 21 July at 8.30 pm, with the participation of the Campania singer-songwriter Giuseppe Grillo who composed the song “Più forte” dedicated to mother Federica.