Maria Elena Saldana
BY Alejandro Feregrino-. When María Elena Saldaña confirmed that her daughter was born with Down syndrome, she knew she was facing the most complicated challenge of her life.
The actress, famous for her role as girls in television shows such as “La Güereja y algo más” and “Güereja de mi vida”, was born short, but contrary to what many think, this has never determined her life.
La Guereja and Benito Castro
In fact, her mother treated her with the same discipline and demanded the same results from her as from the other siblings and even more than from them since she was the eldest in the family.
In an interview with Yordi Rosado, he revealed that during his childhood he underwent various studies and treatments to find out what caused his short stature until he asked his parents not to do it anymore.
“One day I told my father that I didn’t want to go anymore, I was nine years old and I said to my father: ‘He will die there’, besides we lived in Veracruz and they had to admit me to the Hospital de La Raza.
“The studies were supposed to be done at the Medical Center and they wanted to put me in an ambulance (…) I convinced my father that I didn’t want this party anymore.”
“It was just a little smaller.”
Since she was still young, her parents faced the challenge of raising her according to the same standards as the other siblings and decided that they would not make any difference to her.
“As far as I know, they never did. So my life was like everyone else’s life. They asked me the same thing: good grades, going to bed early, washing the dishes, taking care of your siblings because you are the oldest, you have to be a role model because you are the oldest.”
“It was just a little smaller. Maybe I couldn’t reach the dishwasher, maybe I couldn’t reach the stove, and when I had to make Christmas punch I had to put a chair down and climb on it because there were six of us kids and there were eight of us with mom and dad , and the punch pot was the one from the tamales,” he said some time ago during a conference at which he gave his testimony.
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The journey of motherhood
The real challenge of her life came when she became the mother of a little girl with trisomy 21, the chromosomal disorder known as Down syndrome.
“I went to the kindergartens and asked them to give me my baby. I arrived at the kindergarten, asked about my daughter and hugged her. Now I was experiencing the challenge that my parents had experienced when they saw their daughter in a special case, now it was I who was experiencing it, it was I who had to respond to this challenge.
From that moment on, “La Güereja” dedicated herself to studying everything possible to understand Down syndrome and dedicated herself to raising her daughter.
“It took work and work, research and study, because now I was the one who couldn’t leave my daughter’s situation in the hands of someone else,” he said at that conference.
Belén is currently 23 years old and can take care of herself and even help her when she needs it.
“Today my daughter learned some cooking from chefs in normal schools. A few months ago, I think it was about a year ago, I got a “severe” vertigo and the one who raised me to eat was Belén, and when they had to take my dresser away, Belén brought it to me, she is the one who did the eating.”
Finally, he managed to keep the promise he made to Belén on the day she was born and held her for the first time: “I told her to trust me, that we would do everything to make sure everything be okay.”