The Kings experienced a day full of emotions yesterday. While Letícia chaired, in Santiago de Compostela, the world day of Rare Diseases, Felip returned to the classrooms of the Faculty of Law of the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM) to celebrate the 30th anniversary of his promotion.
The two spoke at the respective events, but this time they were not protocol words, as both were truly moved by the moment they were living. The Queen, remembering a 5-year-old boy who suffered from a rare disease and who died two months ago, and the King, reliving his time at the university and more specifically the classes of professor Francisco Tomás y Valiente, who was killed by ETA on February 12, 1996 in his office of the Autonomous Community of Madrid.
The central event of the celebration of the 30th anniversary of Felip de Borbó’s university promotion took place in the great hall that bears the name of the jurist who was also president of the Constitutional Court. The King also had a memory for another of his teachers and mentors, the lawyer Aurelio Menéndez, who died four years ago, who was his tutor during the years he spent at the faculty. He also had time to joke about himself, when he said: “We’re back after three decades. There is no doubt that the university stage is a turning point… It was also for me, even though I had a future… let’s say more than predictable”.
Meanwhile, at the Palau de Congressos de Santiago de Compostela, the Queen moved and moved the audience by recalling the story of Marco, a boy affected by Schaaf-Yang syndrome whom she met last year in León in the course of World Rare Disease Day.
“I could not exchange a single word with him; he kissed me and looked at me. And that was enough”, recalled the Queen yesterday, who could not hide her distress when she explained that two months ago the boy’s father informed her that the boy had died. “After five years of polymedication, with a severe intellectual disability, fed by tube, with a tracheotomy, with all possible care and all the love, he died peacefully next to his parents and his brothers”, he said the Queen.
In her words, on the occasion of the celebration of a new world day, the Queen did not limit herself to asking for more research and an early diagnosis; he also managed to convey his passionate commitment to those affected by relating the stories of various affected children and adults.
