Farewell

Dominique Lapierre is dead. The great writer, the brilliant and generous philanthropist, the friend of India, the author of The City of Joy passed away in early December and was buried in his Ramatuelle, southern France.
He joined his holy friends in heaven, John Paul II and Mother Teresa of Calcutta. After ten and a half years of ordeal, which began in the spring of 2012 with a fall. Since that date, he has lived unaware, without being able to write or speak, or recognize faces and stories.
From one clinic to another, with some breaks at home. I went to see him one day. He didn't recognize me. I wrote him a letter, never sent, never arrived, never read by anyone.

“Dear Dominique, I saw you for the first time after June 10, 2012. I wish I hadn't. Because from that date you are another Dominique Lapierre. The body is yours, of course. His eyes, sometimes good and clever flashes, sometimes too. But not the rest. It is no longer your powerful and happy voice that now comes out distorted by the tracheotomy.

They are no longer your hands, the emaciated and purplish ones that emerge from the blanket and move in slow motion. Nor the legs, those nervous and never still legs, always on the move, in a path that sometimes seemed like a race, between your beloved, sweet, perfumed land of France, and the painful, dusty Indian city of joy. Your prodigious memory is no longer there, and it is the most shocking fact of all. You didn't recognize me. You didn't yell my name like you always did.
You didn't ask me how much our book sold. You didn't ask about Marilena and my children, my dad and the dog and my Italian friends. All cancelled. Will come back?".

Today we can answer no, nothing was like before. We have to say goodbye, Dominique. I do it with the words of Mother Teresa you loved most, your motto:
Life is an opportunity, take it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, savor it.
Life is a dream, make it a reality.
Life is a challenge, take it up.
Life is a duty, fill it out.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is precious, take care of it.
Life is a wealth, keep it.
Life is love, enjoy it.
Life is a mistery, discover it!
Life is promised, fulfill it.
Life is sadness, get over it.
Life is an anthem, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, face it hand to hand.
Life is an adventure, risk it.
Life is happiness, deserve it.
Life is life, defend it."

Renzo Agasso
NP January 2023