My name is Rocío Gómez… I am the eldest of four siblings, and when I was five years old, I was the only witness to my father pushing my mother into the kitchen, where 80 percent of her body caught fire.
I know this is a harsh way to start a story, but it is necessary to show my roots.
We left our home to live with our grandmother, who was our first savior, while my mother was hospitalized for burns.
My grandmother raised us with love and care, and for the first time we learned the meaning of the words HOME and HEARTH. Everything was wonderful, leaving us with the most beautiful memories. But after eight months, a devastating terminal illness took her away.
So we went to live with my father while we waited for my mother to be discharged from the hospital, and there we experienced the worst kind of hell: seeing our parents fight and hurt each other. Seeing my father immersed in addiction and us begging him not to make us witness scenes of violence towards my mother.
After two years, my maternal grandmother asked the court for our guardianship because my father was in prison. She was a country woman, very hard-working but not very affectionate. However, she never abandoned us. She raised us and enrolled us in First Communion classes. That’s where I discovered “El Campito”… I arrived there when I was between 11 and 12 years old. I knew the school because I had made my First Communion in the Chapel of the Sisters of Charity.
When we arrived at CASA, FOCOLARE, as I still call the school, we were welcomed with great affection and care by the Sisters of Charity and the volunteers who helped us rediscover love and dignity within ourselves and who helped us strengthen and cultivate our abilities through gestures of love and attentive care, expressions of the charisma and spirituality of Jeanne Antide. We began to appreciate a new way of life, rediscovering the dignity that allows each person to be at the center of their own story on a path illuminated by the presence of God.
Sometimes this can go unnoticed by many people, but for those who do not receive love and are mistreated, this place was an oasis in the desert, and at that time there was a new wave of serenity and, above all, protection. I still remember the wooden house and the long benches where we shared the aroma of cooked mate, something so simple that it gave us the aroma of home. Because someone with love and dedication gave their time to prepare something for us.
We didn’t have great luxuries, but it was our place where we could play and forget where we came from… a place where we could be children.
The nuns and lay volunteers took care of us, and over time, our sense of belonging grew stronger. Sometimes, to thank them for everything they did for us, I would draw them cooking or cleaning and make them smile by giving them a drawing… They knew our stories, our families of origin, and our pasts of violence, abuse, addiction, and vulnerability, and they didn’t judge us for it. On the contrary, they taught us love in a universal language by offering us their love. As the years went by, they also gave us educational support; when I was in high school, I was sometimes able to go and help the younger children.
Today I am 41 years old, a mother of three, a professional fashion designer, and, for the past few days, a volunteer at “Campito” “CASA MIA – FOCOLARE MIO” (MY HOME – MY HEARTH). Today I choose to be on the other side.
Today I give my time like those people did yesterday, and I also serve cooked mate so that the children feel at home… Today, together with some colleagues, we give a hug full of support. We welcome the children with open arms and read their eyes. We know them in every mood.
I know pain and violence….I think life is a hard school… A learning experience that today allows me to understand others….Today I also receive drawings that I keep in my apron and take home…
Today, I am part of this oasis in the desert for children and young people, where I have received love and charity, and where I have been taught service and dedication. Today, I give my time and I am happy to make others happy; I teach resilience to turn history around: if you have been hurt, don’t do the same. Today, as a former camp participant, I tell the kids about my life so they can see that there is always a good path ahead of us.
I always think that my brothers and I could have lost our way, but thank God we never took the wrong path… And I thank God for listening to our pleas. He has always been by our side, showing us that his plan was perfect.
Every Saturday, my family and I participate in the Perseverance Group, a group of teenagers who follow the path of Jesus by being missionaries in their families, at school, and among their friends, increasing their faith and strengthening bonds of friendship and unity with the community.
It has been a great gift for me to have known Jeanne Antide, through the testimony of the sisters who have taught us dignity, justice, love, and tenderness, Christian values that invite us to be ever more faithful to what God has in mind for all of us: God Alone.
