It has been almost two decades since Facundo’s death, the son of Maru Botana who passed away in 2008 at six months old due to sudden infant death syndrome. Yet the pain remains as vivid, and this was reflected in the heartfelt interview she gave for the cycle More Girls than Moms (Summarized) hosted by Juana Repetto and Vicky Gils, where she recalled how she lived through that dawn that changed her life forever.
The chef explained that she was on vacation in the south with much of her family, while the baby had stayed in Buenos Aires under the care of his grandparents. In the middle of the night she received a call from her husband, Bernardo Solá, with a sentence she would never forget.
“I’m going to tell you the ugliest thing you’ll hear in your life. Facu has died.” When recalling that moment, Maru described the impact she felt.
“It was tremendous. What do we do? What do we do now? I felt like my light went out. I understood, but I did not have certainty,” she added.
The Desperate Return to Buenos Aires
Botana recalled that the journey back unfolded in a state of absolute disbelief. According to her account, for hours she felt that reality hadn’t fully imposed itself.
“I was like a zombie, thinking I would wake him up. I couldn’t understand it in my head. I could never understand it either. Those questions you ask yourself: why?”
She also acknowledged that for a long time she found it impossible to put into words what she was living through. “For me it was a dagger in the heart. I was shaken, I couldn’t talk, I was dying.”
Farewell to Facundo and the Support of His Family
One of the most difficult memories she keeps from those days was the moment of saying goodbye to her son. The chef confessed that she could not touch his body because she felt she did not have the strength to do so. “It was stronger than me. I preferred to remember him as he was. It was incredibly hard.”
During the interview she also recalled the conversation she had with the doctor who attended to Facundo. According to her, the professional told her that, in many cases of sudden death, the passing occurs when the mother is not present.
“The doctor told me that it was obvious he would die when I wasn’t there. She looked for the moment to let go. I didn’t feel guilty about leaving him because I left him in the best hands.”
Maru stressed that her parents were the ones taking care of the baby that night and she asserted that she never felt guilty about that decision.
Finally, she shared that, even while going through the most painful moment of her life, she tried to shield her other children from the suffering. “I tried to cry somewhere else so that they wouldn’t see me.”
With these words, the chef publicly revisited one of the most difficult chapters of her personal history, remembering Facundo and the profound grief that forever marked her entire family.
