The green of the mountain slides over the modest house. She lifts the clothes off the line as the dog scratches at the door to get inside.
Inside, a child sleeps on a bed covered in drawings, accompanied by a “dinosaur.” “She loves them,” says Analía Paiva (43) while she tenderly looks at her grandson.
Almost two months ago their lives changed forever: on December 19, 2022, Sofia Sosa (24) was stabbed to death by his ex-partner José Luis Gómez (26), in the house he rented in the El Talita neighborhood, in Salsipuedes (Sierras Chicas). Her 4-year-old son saw everything.
Since then, in pain, Analía has taken care of her grandson with the support of her partner and her 17-year-old son, the only one she has left. With Sofia, her eldest, she lost two. She wipes away her tears and says: “Having it gives me the strength to get ahead; It’s my strength.”
His house is under construction and he builds it with a lot of sacrifice. She now he adapted the reduced spaces for his granddaughter. “The first month was very difficult. He was very angry. He asked me to go to his house, his toys. Now, it was him once more ”, he recounts.
The child sometimes pronounces: “They killed my mother.” She is undergoing psychological treatment, like Analía.
“It’s heartbreaking to know that he saw the murder,” the grandmother says. The psychologist told him that everything will be slow. As a family, they go through the pain of loss together. “I have to continue. She needs me. One does not fall for everything that happened and we are going through ”, she refers.
This year the little one will start the garden and in August he will be 5 years old. She will take him to class and return to his job in the municipality of Salsipuedes, where he is now on leave. “I need to go back to work for my health,” she says.
Despite the sadness, her grandson is the one who makes her smile with his games and mischief. “I want her to continue going to the psychologist and not have the trauma of having lived through the death of her mother,” he yearns.
Family ties
The boy is visited by Sofia’s family and friends, and by his father, with whom he has very little ties. “I asked him to go little by little. I don’t want money, but I do want the best for my grandson,” says Ana.
For her, it is like being a mother once more, but she will never replace her daughter: “I am her grandmother. He’s going to have her mother in her mind and in her heart.”
And he adds: “I told him that he should have helped my daughter so that her struggle was lighter. With the Universal Assignment plus what I earned with nail and eyelash aesthetics, my grandson never lacked for anything. She was headed for him.”
Sofia’s soccer teammates had a benefit match. “I have saved that money to make my grandson’s room,” says Analía.
heartbreaking story
The morning that Sofia was murdered by Gómez, she was returning from visiting her father who was in Río Ceballos. And she died with the panic button in her hand.
He lived threatened with death. She had blocked him on social networks and when she made the complaint, the harassment was worse. “When your dad leaves, no one is going to defend you,” she was one of her last threats.
The murderer, who is imprisoned in the Bouwer prison, lived for a time with Sofia and her son. “It was a violent relationship. The first time he went to a friend’s house with the baby. And the second time, the police called,” says Analía, who also suffered gender violence with an ex-partner.
When Sofia left him, he would persecute her and intervene in their relationships. “Surely he threatened her, telling her that she was going to hurt us,” says Analía. “My daughter went to the police station to expand the complaint and she did not take it, because she did not have the anti-panic button,” she says.
“There is a lack of actions to act faster and ensure the lives of the victims. Sofia is no longer here, but I say it for the other women who suffer violence, ”she denounces. And she assures that her daughter did not have custody, “but today they guard the murderer’s family.” Analía emphasizes: “I want life. If she goes out she’s going to kill and ruin other people’s lives.”
his last talk
Analía breaks down when she remembers the last chat she exchanged with her daughter: “She told me she was already at home. I told him to charge her cell phone and put the anti-panic button next to the bed. She answered me: ‘Yes, ma’. Those were his last words”.
Gomez stabbed her and wounded the friend who was with her. “I think he was hiding and he surprised them. He had been planning to kill her, ”he says.
At 6:30 in the morning, a neighbor called Analía’s brother to look for her grandson. Sofia had been dead for several hours. “I mightn’t get in because I had to wait for Criminalistics, even though it was painful, I should have been there,” she laments.
Femicides and orphaned childhoods
According to the registry of Women of the Latin American Motherland (MuMaLá), of the 22 femicides perpetrated in Argentina from January 1 to 30 of this year, 22 children and adolescents were left without their mothers. It is the other “inheritance” that femicides leave as a lifelong wound.
