The protagonists of this impactful testimony about loving your neighbor, reported by AsiaNews, are Rosy and Pascal Saldanha and their children, Anselm and Shalom, residents of Mumbai, India.
At 52, Rosy suffers from diabetes and has mild paralysis after being in a coma in 2016 due to a brain hemorrhage. She is on dialysis three times a week because of kidney failure. She now weighs 88 pounds and is at high risk of infections.
Previously, Rosy had worked at Xavier School in Borivali, but had to leave her job because of her illness. Since her treatment began, the family has already spent more than $270,000 on doctors, medicines, and hospital care.
Pascal has a company that organizes events and weddings, but the pandemic has drastically affected this market, making his financial situation difficult. The family had to sell a property to pay for Rosy’s treatment.
However, they got word of someone in serious need of oxygen. Pascal tells AsiaNews,
On April 18, in the midst of the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, my childhood friend Rafique Siddiqui told me that a teacher at the Holy Mother English School—the institution where she is the principal—could not access oxygen to treat her husband, infected by Covid.
Despite her fragile health and the family’s precarious finances, Rosy told her husband Pascal, “Don’t worry about me; whether I live or die is a gift from God. Let’s save the lives of the sick.”
She then asked him to give the oxygen tank she keeps at home for emergencies to help the man. “I’m sick but we have to support those in difficulty, make them happy. Our children Anselm and Shalom encourage us to help others,” she said.
India last month became the world epicenter of the pandemic, surpassing frightening milestones such as 400,000 new infections in 24 hours and surpassing 8,000 deaths total over just 2 days in a row. The level of new infections is starting to decrease, but is still frighteningly high, and the daily average of deaths in the country continues to exceed 3,500.
In this tragic scenario, the lack of oxygen in hospitals is one of the many problems plaguing the huge population of more than 1.3 billion people.
But Rosy and Pascal’s generosity didn’t end there. Rosy insisted that Pascal sell her jewelry and buy more oxygen tanks to donate to those who need it more than she does.
In addition to the tank that she’d already given, they’ve donated seven more. Willing to go further, they are now selling an electricity generator to help about 35 other patients to breathe as well.
And today we celebrate...