By Aparecida De Souza, October 24, 2019 — Because of many straining circumstances surrounding the birth of my younger daughter, as well as the early years of her babyhood, I used to spend hours and hours near her crib, praying to God that she would be blessed and grow to be the happiest, most wonderful person in the world.
I prayed, and prayed all through the days, and inside the nights, without stop…
She grew up beautiful, all right.
I used to send my older daughter to many different schools, as many as I could, to learn music, dance, painting, whatever I found available – after regular school hours, because I so believe in education. Well, the younger one was too young to be enlisted, but she insisted that she wanted to go too… so she always went together with the older sister as “a companion,” not a regular student of those courses.
Nevertheless, she participated and got enormous achievements before actually becoming engaged as a student, in such a way that she was never behind the sister. I constantly advised them to get a real profession and have art as hobbies only.
I had a bookcase in the bathroom; when Carla got in, she didn’t seem to want to come out.
She kept busy at all times and self-taught herself many things. She also took a correspondence course in drawing, when finding herself without time for more conventional classes during the day.
When the time came for her to get in kindergarten, I wanted to make sure she got into the best school of our neighborhood.
There was a problem, though: People said that that school only accepted rich kids – we wouldn’t have a chance! I thought that that was impossible; how could they deny you the vacancy if you were the first to register? So, I got together with another mother who was my friend and we went to camp in front of the gates of the school, the night before the registration date. Many other people had the same idea and a big line was formed throughout the night – I was number one though, and sure enough, my child went first. Well, the day the teacher called for a meeting between parent and teacher, I had the nicest surprise. When I was called to meet the teacher, she ran to me with her arms wide open saying: Are you Carla’s mother?” and embraced me tightly, explaining: “Oh; she is such a wonderful child … oh, what a joy to teach her. I love her! She’s just unbelievable!”
It was then, even though I had felt it many times, that I knew for sure that God had blessed her in ways that I had not even known how to ask and the miracle only grew.
After going to college and graduate school, she embarked to Switzerland where she did research during 8 years at the Swiss University.
It is now the 5th year that she is back in the US, working as an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
I just went to visit her, last September, and was surprised with the news about her getting this very prestigious award, of which I am attaching a copy here not counting the pleasure of watching her sit in front of a congressional board to testify about her projects, for about 2 weeks, on Environmental Engineering.