Of course, in the beginning, she was overwhelmed with taking care of a physically-challenged child. Most of all, she was afraid of how other people would react to him. And she was naturally worried that Robert would be bullied and teased because of his appearance.
But because of Robert’s situation, the family grew extremely close. Everyone stood wholeheartedly behind their youngest family member. When he was still a child, the benign tumor was removed from his nose in a complex operation. Because much of his nose had to be removed during the surgery, doctors reconstructed it afterwards using cartilage from his toes.
Unfortunately, his legs, which were badly deformed, couldn’t be saved. They were in such a poor condition that doctors decided to amputate and fit Robert with two prostheses.
Robert became aware of the negative feelings his mother once had towards him because when he was a young boy, she read aloud to him from her diary. She had started writing down her thoughts on the advice of a doctor. Therein, among other private fears, she had written, “I didn’t feel anything for this baby.” At first Robert couldn’t understand why his mother hadn’t loved him from the beginning. Sometimes it made him sad and anxious.
But later he saw it all from a completely new perspective. “I think I had a few times where I was a bit concerned and a bit worried and couldn’t quite understand, but I think then it just clicked one day that it was like a movie that has some sad parts in the middle but has a happy ending,” Robert wisely reflected.
