For years no one wanted to adopt it. Today his name has entered the history of paralympic sport.
When Oksana Masters was born in Ukraine, the consequences of the Chernobyl disaster still marked the lives of many families. He came to light with severe malformations and his early years spent in an orphanage, between difficulty, malnutrition and a future that seemed already written.
It looked like one of those little girls meant to be forgotten.
Then, on the other side of the world, an American woman named Gay Masters saw her photograph.
She didn't know her.
And yet he felt he had to become his mother.
When Oksana was seven, Gay adopted her and took her to the United States, where she finally began a new life.
The challenges, however, were not over.
His health conditions were very serious and, in the following years, it was necessary to fill both legs.
Many would have seen only everything he had lost.
Gay, however, continued to see everything his daughter could have become.
She encouraged her to practice sports, supported her care, her training and every new opportunity that she presented along the way.
Above all, he never stopped saying something to her.
That his future would not have been decided by scars.
But from the courage with which he would choose to face them.
Oksana made his own words.
Over time, he stood in various sports disciplines, conquering medals at the Paralympic Games and becoming one of the most decorated athletes in the history of the United States.
Every victory told his extraordinary strength of will.
But behind those successes there was also a woman who, many years before, decided to believe in a child that almost everyone had ignored.
Medals made Oksana know the world.
The love of a mother, however, gave her something even more important: the possibility of building a future that no one imagined possible.
Because a family is not always the one where it is born.
Sometimes that's what tends your hand when the world seems to have turned your back on you.
Small Stories