It’s
not quite as final as you may think.
by Judy Bachrach
Death
has an interesting character in Italy. It’s not always evil. For example, if
you die anywhere in Italy, which I highly recommend, you get to lie in state in
either an embellished hospital room or else the prettiest room in the family
house, often air- conditioned, which for your benefit will be converted into
what they call here “una camera ardente.”
What
this means is that the room, starring you in your best outfit, will be stuffed
with little candles, placed elegantly all around your body. Hundreds of
chrysanthemums, the traditional flower for the dead, will be settled in large
vases, brought by scores of grieving visitors, all of whom will say they
remember you fondly because it is polite to do so.
Debbie
Collins, a British acupuncturist whose father-in-law was laid out within
minutes in just such a companiable way, recalls her grieving mother-in-law
“alternately slapping her husband’s face, berating him for dying, and weeping
over him and telling him how much she loved him and was going to miss
him.” This is normal behavior in much of Italy, a country that reveres
its dead a whole lot more than it admires the living.
(Note
to tourists: About the most vulgar and offensive thing you can say in Rome is
“Mortacci tua!” which means basically “Damn your dead ancestors.” I know it
doesn’t sound like much, but trust me, it is incendiary. So if you hear it,
don’t repeat it.) Continue
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