He fell in love with her from his wheelchair and she felt that he was her great love, but life played an unexpected card

Perspiration trickles down his forehead and round beads of sweat slide down his face to end up balancing on the tips of his mustache hairs. He with one hand he carries the ball; with the other he magically rolls his wheelchair that he skids, leaning to the right, as if suspended in the air. It seems that at any moment he is going to topple over and hit the floor squarely on his face. He screams and passes the ball to his teammate who receives it and scores the goal.

It was worth the effort.

With a smile from ear to ear, now he grabs the wheels of his chair with both hands and launches at full speed to reach another pass, but in his mad rush his car collides with an opposing team's chair and poof! !!! Two players smash their bodies against the cement floor.

No one cares too much, it's a common scene in these matches. Chair collisions, slaps and falls are all part of the fun.

Javier is skinny as a wire, pure nerve and bone . He looks overflowing with joy. He is clad in a white tank top with a red number emblazoned on the back. His still feet wear slippers without any friction. Javier is happy and a bundle of positive energy. He humorously yells at one of the opposing team before walking off the court:

-Hey, I'm lame, but I'm not stupid... I saw that your chair in the last play went over the limit, it was ball for us. I still forgive you, lame turncoat, because we won.

(Note: lame is usually the way they are called, among them, paraplegics).

Javier winks at him and laughs contagiously. He knows that he is “the” character on the pitch, the funniest on the team and in the entire rehab center. His mischievous Salta tune adds color to the afternoon. Then, there will be a lunch at the bodegón across the street to celebrate the victory. Empanadas and a glass of wine.

No one told me this and it was many years ago. I witnessed it live and direct on Echeverría street, in Bajo Belgrano, where the National Institute for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled (now the Institute of Psychophysical Rehabilitation ) is located, and the nearby gym where those in recovery practice basketball.

The visit of bad luck

Javier V. was 26 years old and needed a wheelchair since he was 17. Malpractice, in a well-known Buenos Aires hospital where he had been referred to have a lung tumor removed, left him paralyzed. From the waist down he no longer felt anything. He himself used to tell whoever was interested in his story that when they removed some of his ribs they had accidentally sectioned his spinal cord. A horror story carried out by practicing doctors whose names he didn't even remember.

His misfortune forced him to leave his native province and his huge and beloved family to rehabilitate for a year in the Argentine capital . He had to learn to drive himself, to get around on two wheels and to overcome the pitfalls that daily life could present. The year dragged on and Javier continued to stay in the big city. He only returned to Salta to spend the holidays.

His thick dark eyebrows, his green eyes -always as if surprised-, his irrepressible humor... All this conquered Veronica, 26, one of the volunteer social workers who were going to help the local boarding schools in the recreation area. .

They met one afternoon out of many and Javier's spark struck him squarely. Veronica was shy, very religious, and extremely serious. Javier overcame her barriers as a joke. Recital goes, recital comes (internees were always accompanied by volunteers) at the Obras Sanitarias stadium; dirty jokes that made her red as a tomato and picnics in the square... The relationship was built little by little . Javier looked forward with more and more anxiety to the days she went: Wednesdays and Saturdays.

He, brazen and friendly, drove her crazy with her anecdotes from her provincial interior. She listened to him with wide eyes. Several months had already passed when Javier took the first step. Veronica couldn't find a way to say no when Javier one night, before leaving, formally invited her out. He accepted and had a hard time admitting to herself how much the idea of ​​her amused him.

It would be the following Saturday.

Javier waited for her that day, at the rehabilitation center, dressed to the nines. Ironed shirt, perfumed, polished shoes. She arrived and, after fulfilling her usual schedule, they went together to a bar where they had sometimes played pool. Eight blocks in which he went with his chair, in the absence of ramps at that time, jumping the curbs of the sidewalks with the skill of an exalted athlete. She walked beside her, a little embarrassed to have access to movement that he lacked.

They arrived, chose a table in a corner, sat down opposite each other, and ordered their food. Little by little, the talk ignited their hearts and souls. Veronica told Javier what she never told anyone. After her came her first kiss with her sitting on her lap.

“Perhaps being with someone who had such a problem made mine less important and I was able to let them go. He unstuck me right away and confronted me with my rigid principles. He had a great ability to listen and a lot of sensitivity to understand any conflict. Javier was beyond the rest. He was different. Also, there was the matter of sex. A taboo especially with people with different abilities. I was re-closed and he helped me free myself , ”recalls Veronica.

wedding on two wheels

The love was immediate. Javier, insolent and entertaining, had no qualms about living it freely. Veronica felt that the love of his life had arrived, but she feared the judgment of family and friends. The most critical issue was getting around the prejudices of her own house. His parents and his four brothers had already made him understand: he had no reason to "sacrifice" for anyone, religion did not require that of him, he was mixing charity with love...

But she, Veronica, felt that he was not like the others thought. She and Javier had a unique, special connection, beyond everyone and everything.

@Fractal_YT @Bryan_Soy @Jessewelle @elonmusk Did you steal the tires seem to know a lot about stealing tires 👀

— raymond Wed Aug 12 17:02:46 +0000 2020

The relationship thrived through months of muted opposition from those who hoped that one day she would magically realize how much she was giving and that she deserved an easier life.

"They almost thought I was immolating myself," she says as she recalls those years, “And they believed that I was condemned to not have a sexual life. They were wrong, but I wasn't going to explain the matter to anyone because I considered that it was part of my privacy. And besides, I'm very modest."

Finally, she imposed her will and her relatives ended up accepting, at least officially, the courtship. Some time later, they set a date. They got married! And they would start looking for a son. They knew from consulting doctors that he might have them . There was an erection (although she was not totally voluntary) and sperm production, she explained to Javier's closest friends at the time. If that did not work, they would do in vitro treatment with the financial help of their relatives.

Months before getting married, they moved together to the apartment that an uncle of the bride lent them, in Liniers: a fourth floor with two bedrooms and a living room, with a large balcony and barbecue, facing the street. Of course, the building had a wheelchair ramp at the entrance.

The party was a cataract of emotions. She in white, he in a dark blue suit. Many friends were sitting at tables with their chairs or crutches. Most of them dreamed of the same thing: a girlfriend, happiness, marriage, children.

They had a ten-day honeymoon in Rio de Janeiro.

On the way back, life went on as normal. They made several handmade albums with photos of their history and of the wedding, with phrases that identified them and with dried flowers, that they had collected somewhere, glued. They made them by hand, one by one, to give their memories to their dearest friends. They stayed with the first.

She, already graduated as a psychologist, continued working in a private center. He, with a friend, was dedicated to selling used cars of acquaintances and repairing old vehicles . They didn't need much more. Meanwhile, they dreamed of occupying the second room with a baby.

“We got along very well” , says Veronica, “Never a fight! He was very independent and always had a thousand programs. I am calmer. He was very funny and he also told tremendous jokes… I made him angry, but actually I had a lot of fun. Javi was not at all self-conscious, he took the world ahead and talked about his disability with anyone. He knew how to defend himself, nobody could put him first in any business. He sold used cars and had had ours adapted. We traveled to Salta and everywhere with him at the wheel. I never experienced him as an impediment, but very few understood it. The only problem we had was that the first two years passed and I did not get pregnant . That distressed me. He was already in his 30s and wanted to have children. I didn't know if it was for him or for me, but we started with the consultations. Fertilization was very expensive, but they had already offered to lend us the money”.

The distraction for the son who did not arrive

Immersed in the search for the baby, perhaps they neglected Javier's first symptoms. He gasped for breath, had a few coughing fits, and his back ached. It could be a cold, the position in the chair or nothing. When they finally went to the specialist who was treating him and told him about his symptoms, he sent him a complete study.

There he jumped out what they had never thought: that benign lung tumor from the age of 17 had returned.

That destabilized them and the illusions they had vanished. The subject of the son passed to another level. Now, the issue was Javier's health. The doctor sent them to a renowned oncologist. Although the tumor was not malignant, its growth was life-threatening. There were few chances. From here on, the story becomes sad.

The tumor grew, his lungs collapsed, and one New Year's Eve, Javier died. Veronica was with him until the last day. She accompanied him to all the interconsultations, she took him to the professional who did respiratory kinesiology, she ventilated his room when he felt that she was suffocating. And above all, she looked at him with love.

Javier died loved and accompanied.

Veronica was left alone.

“ When he died I thought I was not going to be able to live without him, without his innate joy, without his jokes… Alone in the apartment, I got depressed and it took a long time until I started to recover. I saw his brothers, I took care of his mother... I lived in the past. Until one day, in a supermarket, I met the one who had been his kinesiologist. We talked a lot about Javier and his life. Juan , that was his name, had just separated. I had been a widow for almost two years. He asked for my cell phone. One day he called me for coffee. It was Friday afternoon and I was so down that I decided to go. Today he is my husband and the father of my three daughters ”, concludes Verónica.

They have been married for more than 14 years, but Veronica never forgot Javier, the first who made her laugh and who made her shake all her prejudices off of her.

In fact, that album from her first wedding, full of romantic phrases and flowers, is neatly placed on the second shelf of the library of her house in Villa Devoto. Juan and his daughters know that this stage of his life is there, for everyone to see, because in some way it was Javier who made this present possible. Without him, Veronica would not have met Juan and they would not have been born.

Sometimes, happy endings, we also owe to others.

* Real Loves is a series of true stories, told by their protagonists. In some of them, the names of the protagonists will be changed to protect their identity and the photos, illustrative

KEEP READING:

She married the younger brother of her ex-lover: the unexpected turn of a love story marked by destinyShe was the teacher of two teenagers until the mother died and fate pointed her to the love of her lifeThe first kiss came when she was leaving of the country, they met again after months and are still in love