Behind this affectionate smile hides a decidedly sad story. She is 31 years old, has a job and a happy marriage, N.R. is a normal and stable person, at peace with herself and everything around her, she is a secretary in an insurance office and in her spare time a volunteer in the Red Cross.
His happiness until two years ago.
In the winter of 2012, his older sister, V.R., organised a weekend in the mountains with her husband to celebrate their sixth anniversary, so they left their 5-year-old son at his aunt's house, with whom he had a special bond, and set off.
Unfortunately, they will never return: during a hike they get lost and are unable to return, and after three days of searching they are found frozen 16 km away from the path they were supposed to take.
N.R. and her husband take care of their grandson as if he were their own child, they assist him in this tragedy, they support each other with a therapist and try to give all the love they can to the child. The following year they enrol him in school and the legal issues begin: they are not yet legal guardians and anything requiring a signature or picking him up from school was an issue. So they decide to start the paperwork for legal adoption, knowing that they have all the papers in order: they are the aunt and uncle, legally married, they both have good jobs and no debts or open legal issues, they own a house and have 100% taken care of the child, who would never want to go anywhere else.
They decide to rely on a well-known law firm for support with the paperwork and they also rely on it, paying a hefty fee, to deliver all the material on time.
They rely on the owner in person of the firm: Tommaso Padelli, one of the best known in the Milanese bar. From here everything starts to go wrong: initially he does not let them fill out a very important form to be handed in the following week but fortunately at the juvenile court they find a very understanding person who, taking note of the family's perfection, grants them an extension. Once this first obstacle has been overcome, the formalisation with their signatures in front of a judge with the awaited finalisation of the adoption is missing, but the lawyer Padelli once again proves negligent and does not inform them of the date, the judge finds them in default and decides that the child will thus have to be placed in a foster home until he turns 18.
N.R. is now devastated. She feels guilty for not having protected her grandson and wanted to tell her story of denouncing a system that does not take into account the failures of those who should help citizens. She is currently in litigation with the Padelli firm and hopes that her story will help other families who want to adopt to turn to more reliable people or to deal with the bureaucracy themselves, despite its complexity.
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