The Petralanda-González family knew the depths of suffering when on June 13, 2015, Alesander, the youngest son, died in a traffic accident. A year later, after an ordeal only imaginable by those who have experienced a similar loss, Isaac entered the home of this Basque family, a 2-year-old Togolese boy who arrived, with the help of an NGO, to undergo surgery for a congenital problem. . Conchi, Alesander's mother, smiled again for the first time in a year, and Ricardo and Borja, father and brother of the deceased young man, found a reason to live. Isaac, who came to be helped, ended up helping to reborn a broken family with whom this summer, like every year, he has been reunited.
Ricardo Petralanda endures his emotion when he shows on his mobile the photograph of his wife holding the newly arrived Isaac in her arms. “I have this photo framed. My wife hadn't smiled for a year,” he explains next to Laida beach, in the Urdaibai reserve. That's where it all ended, when they scattered the ashes of his son Alesander. Although it is also the place where everything began again. “My son Borja got married in that hermitage a few months after Isaac arrived. We dress the boy in a bow tie (photo shows). In that other area I practiced kayaking for the first time, at 70 years old, with Isaac. We are always here with the boy, and everyone knows him because he is endearing. “He has given us life and hope back,” he explains.
The connection between the Petralanda-González family, native of Durango, and Isaac began to be forged when the family hit rock bottom, during the fall after the summer in which he died. A friend suggested the option of contacting an NGO and the idea of helping children with health problems who temporarily travel to Europe for surgery. They contrasted that idea with the psychiatrist who accompanied them in their grief and, finally, they took the step.
“We were with a wonderful psychiatrist, very renowned, and he gave us tools to manage grief, but in the end it is oneself who has to manage one's suffering and take the step to move forward. We consulted with the psychiatrist about the option of being a host family and he told us that he thought it was a great idea. We signed up, so that the next child would come to our house,” says Ricardo Petralanda.
During the following months, Isaac's arrival was the only loophole to get excited about. A light, still very dim, at the end of the tunnel. The anniversary of Alesander's death arrived and, followed by, Isaac arrived. The little boy was born with an anorectal malformation that forced him to live with a bag attached to the abdominal-oblique area in order to defecate. He came to Spain to treat this malformation, undergo surgery and, finally, face the complex postoperative process.
“He came for 6 or 8 months, but in the end he stayed for two years and two months. Two entire school years. Any other child could have come, but Isaac arrived, who turned out to be a boy just like our Alesander, exactly the same, but in black. And he changed our lives,” he says.
The reception required a significant effort from this family, since the little one's anorectal problems required daily care and cures, in addition to several interventions and a demanding postoperative process. “We had to turn to Isaac, obviously unable to stop thinking about Alesander and what had happened a year ago. The process was hard, especially on a medical level, but Isaac made everything easier. He adapted wonderfully at the school, San Antonio Ikastetxea, to whom I will be grateful, he learned Basque and Spanish from it, and, above all, he gave us all his love,” he explains.
The family's life began to revolve around the little boy, although always with the perspective that sooner rather than later, after the main intervention and a second operation linked to another problem that was detected, he would return home. In parallel, the opportunity arose to build bridges with Isaac's biological family in Togo, especially after Borja, Alesander's brother, took a honeymoon trip to this African country.
In July 2018, Isaac returned home, now 4 years old. A month later he received a visit from the Petralanda-González family. The boy received them excitedly. Worried about his future in a context so plagued by poverty, this family thought of a plan that would guarantee the little one's future. Ricardo Petralanda committed to the boy's biological family to pay for a good school, one of the best in Togo, with the only condition that they guarantee his attendance and his academic involvement. “It is a very different culture, logically, but I have direct contact with the school and they tell me that it is number 1. We have an agreement: Isaac commits to studying and we commit to allowing him to do so until he is 18,” he adds.
The two families have also agreed on a schedule so they can maintain contact with Isaac. Ricardo and Conchi travel to Togo every February, and the little one visits Euskadi during the summer months. The pandemic and bureaucracy have at times complicated this objective, although the problems have been resolved thanks to the intermediation of several people of good will. Ricardo insists on highlighting the help provided by Javier Galparsoro, president of Cear-Euskadi.
Isaac now returns to Togo after two months of happiness 4,000 kilometers from home. He is already a nine-year-old boy, active, affectionate, smart and studious. His family in Togo and his other family in Durango, who have added a 3-year-old grandson, have taken it upon themselves to tell him his story. Also that of Alesander and the dramatic moment in which he came to fill a broken home with life.
“We have helped him, but he has given us much more. What we have done for him can be bought with money; However, what he has done for us, what he has given us, cannot be bought with all the gold in the world,” he concludes.
