Angela Catania suffered a stroke on Christmas Day and died within hours
Times of Malta reports today (I’m looking at the print edition) that Angela Catania, who met her son for the first time 40 years after she gave birth to him, on Italian television, suffered a massive stroke on Christmas Day and died on Boxing Day.
The show was broadcast last Saturday, which means she had been dead for six weeks already when it aired and yet nothing was said.
Last night I watched the show again, this time more carefully. Mrs Catania does not say her mother forced her to give the baby up for adoption. She says something much worse than that.
When the show host asks her how old she was when she had her baby, Mrs Catania replies: “I was 17, something like that.” The show host replies (with the interpreter translating from Italian to English): “So then you were a minor, and it wasn’t your decision.”
Mrs Catania replies, completely overcome: “My mother told me she adopted him.” This is the way lots of Maltese people use English verbs when they have trouble with a more complicated structure: “had him adopted”.
“My mother told me she had him adopted.”
In fact, her mother hadn’t had the baby adopted at all. She had him dumped in an orphanage, and it was a while before he was adopted, by a Sicilian couple who were already in their 40s (they are both already dead though their adopted son is only 40). By then, he was old enough to have formed basic visual memories of the orphanage building and the nuns.
It is clear that not only was Angela’s baby given away without her consent, but more crucially, without her knowledge. Imagine the trauma. In those days, they used to whisk the baby away from minor mothers as soon as it emerged, most times not even allowing her to see the child she’d just brought into the world ‘not to let her bond’ and ‘because it’s better that way’.
What they didn’t understand (let’s give them the benefit of the doubt) in those primitive days which were not that long ago is that, precisely because the bond which kicks in immediately at the birth is a primeval instinct, thwarting it sets off a massive trauma that creates permanent damage.
“Did you ever think of him?” the show host asks her. “Yes, always,” she replies. Imagine being 17, having your baby whipped away from you without your knowledge or consent, having the Big Thing never spoken about and told to conceal it from others, then living the rest of your life always wondering where he is, what he is doing, what became of him, and hoping against hope that nobody is ill-treating him and that one day he will come looking for you.
The mothers of adopted children are not allowed to look for them; they are not permitted access to information on the child’s identity, his adoptive parents, and his whereabouts. It is only the adopted child who is allowed to look for the mother and who is given information about her.
It is horrendous that the law should allow a minor’s parents to take away her baby and give it up or give it away without her consent. Minors cannot give their consent at law, but their parents can, because the law allows them to take decisions for their minor child which affect her fate and that of their grandchild. Nowadays the process goes through the Courts of Justice, but still the decision is completely out of the minor mother’s hands.
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This tragedy was compounded further by the television programme’s cynical and parasitic approach towards her painful experience.
Reminds me of Fellini’s Ginger e Fred.
Sad indeed. I hope we all reflect before watching such trash TV programmes which can cause so much harm, and which make money out of voyeurism into the pain and suffering of others.
With the alibi of connecting loved ones, they end up crushing defenceless and desperate people who have already had far too much to deal with and cannot cope.
The wave of stigma riders on the single mother issue should realise now that there is more involved with the single mother issue than the consequence of benefits.
For some there have already been obstacles overcome and the stigma is of no help at all in this tiny footprint of a nation.
Rather a revision of the laws to assist the single mother from the perspective of these primal obstacles, than a dumber-than-dumb Prime Minister who says that the most important focus is whether or not they’re gainfully employed.
Basics first, and raw survival of mother and child, and their safety, comes ahead of being gainfully employed. Like it or not.
The laws as they stand do nothing to safeguard the mother and child. They only take the perspective of where possible having the father’s name imposed so that maintenance can be taken care of by him rather than the state. Precedent is only now slowly changing. Often the child will have almost reached maturity before the matter is settled. So much instability and heartache, because the laws of the land are deficient.
The first thing that should be done, is to permit the mother to declare the father on the birth certificate, whilst being permitted to have the child be raised with her name.
Any alternate judgement and maintenance can come from there. As it is, in order not to have “father unknown” on the birth certificate, the single mother is forced to declare the father’s name even where her safety and that of the child are at issue. Evidently, where safety of the mother and child are at stake (and of safety there are myriad descriptions), the option of “father unknown” is preferable. The ridiculous maintenance imposed by the court on the father once he is declared as the father, is no replacement for the ultimate safety and best interests of the child.
The single mother needs safeguards for her child and herself.
Allow me to repeat: a gay unmarried couple can now select which of their names the child will grow up with, but a single mother cannot give her own child her own name if she wishes the father to be declared on the birth certificate. This is irregular in the Europe of today.
A single mother is not only willfully prejudiced by the Government, but further stigmatised in its budgets. The amount and the limits are often of no consequence: it is the concept and perspective that counts in continuing to hammer that nail in.
Dafni,
Maybe this might come as a surprise to you. STROKES ARE NOT CAUSED BY STRESS. No relationship whatsoever.
The only link between strokes and stress is Maltese hearsay. Inkompli nikkonferma li postok mal hamalli ta Bormla, dawk l Mintoffjani.
[Daphne – Rather than delete your stupid comment, I think it best to put you straight. Stress and worry are indeed a major contributor to strokes because they cause blood pressure to rise, sometimes to dangerous levels. When people above the age of 50 receive a terrible shock or are put under great distress, this can trigger heart failure (heart attack) or a stroke.]
You’re a typical ignoramus, Ronnie. What you wrote is actually the exact opposite.
Daphne, you are 100% correct. The raised blood pressure could burst a blood vessel in the brain either weak from birth or acquired disease.
Not to mention empirical evidence linking cancer to trauma.
NHS is using outdated information. Go and inform them about their Maltese hearsay, Ronnie.
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Stroke/Pages/Whosatriskpage.aspx
There’s an epidemiological study which shows a higher incidence of deaths by stroke during election time (read great stress for some individuals) in Malta.
Daphne, please don’t delete such comments. It shows the stupidity of some people, allows your readers to put them straight and provides some entertainment too.
Agree hundred percent. Stress is the worst for high blood pressure, stroke and heart attack. I am also sure that one can die of a broken heart.
Dan ‘Ronnie’, mhux Callus, ghal li jista jkun?
Angus, I was thinking the same. He is even worse than Eddy Privitera and just as smart.
I distinctly recall a notice up in the waiting room at the Gzira Polyclinic giving stress, smoking, and drinking as three causes of high blood pressure.
Daphne, they did this well into the 80s. Even in cases with a very much earlier restoration of the relationship, and a relatively happy aftermath, the damage to that critical bond is practically irreparable.
The sorrow runs deep through the relationship and beyond the power of reason.
That said, happy memories and a daily commitment to hope and to the child’s welfare go a long way towards setting things right over the years, and Angela and her son never got that opportunity.
May she rest in peace. Ronnie has clearly never experienced this type of heartbreak or he would be in no doubt at all that sometimes, it’s just too much to bear.
The same is happening to minors being whisked away for abortions. It is very sad indeed, a child is a blessing. Minors are suffering severe psychological issues as they had no say in aborting their child.
Insulting Daphne has nothing to do with this heartbreaking story, so let’s ignore him. As in most circumstances of this type, the father concerned goes Scot free.
The father was almost certainly never aware of his son’s existence. He is unlikely to have been Maltese, judging by Roberto’s face and build.
I cried when I watched the encounter. So emotional.
When I was a midwife and a single girl gave birth, sometimes we had instructions not to let the mother see the child, sometimes not even telling her the sex of the baby.
Two nuns would later come for the baby because the instruction was that the baby was to be given for adoption.
I used to find it very cruel but I could not do anything.
Nowadays things have changed as everybody now realizes the emotional aspect of the situation.
I am sure that the lady in question was very upset and her blood pressure caused the apoplexy which led to her death.
How cruel life is! She never had the opportunity to enjoy her lovely son. Rest in peace.
Roberto and his mum have been on my mind a lot.
I am very sorry she passed away.
I think it wasn’t the show that killed her, because if it wasn’t for the show they wouldn’t have met.
As you know he went to her house some years ago and didn’t knock on the door.
I think by her reaction she is a woman who hides her emotions and feelings. I am sure she was longing for that hug as soon as she was on the show.
I don’t think it should have lingered that much. They were both happy to meet each other.
I think it could be the bond we have – he liked what he saw, the face of his mother. They have the same look and shyness.
I wish it was a happy ending for them.