BOLZANO. They lived together for 60 years, they died together, within 24 hours of each other. They will be buried together. It is the story of the love of Nicola Guarino81 year old former railway worker, e Giuseppina Palamara 89 years old, a life dedicated to the house and two children. It’s one of them, Luigi, who wants to talk about it despite the pain he’s been surrounded by for days.
“On Wednesday I didn’t even have time to realize my father had passed away and, the next day, my mother also passed away,” he says. Luigi Guarino, musician from Bolzano, «Usually when a bereavement occurs, we tend to bond with the remaining parent, to comfort ourselves and gain strength. My sister and I couldn’t do it.”
Nicola Guarino, originally from Campania, in the province of Avellino, was a well-known man in Bolzano due to his past on the railways. He worked in various municipalities in Alto Adige, including Chiusa and Prato Isarco, first as an official and then as station master. «My father, as a true southern man, helped many South Tyroleans without ever asking for anything in return», continues his son, «The pain was double, because he was in perfect health: never an illness. It was a bolt from the blue, which probably also influenced my mother.”
Giuseppina Palamara, born in Benghazi when Libya still belonged to Italy, however, she had been ill for some time. The tumor had complicated her health condition in recent weeks, she had been hospitalized urgently and died on Thursday in hospital. «She has always been a housewife, even if I remain convinced that she should not have left her job as a seamstress», Luigi Guarino explains further, «she moved here to Bolzano from Rome with my father in the 70s, immediately after the wedding. They loved each other until the end, not without some arguments obviously. But then they promptly made peace and everything went back to how it was before. A double loss like that is indescribable for a child.”
The mourning also affected the community of Montoro, in the province of Avellino, where Nicola Guarino was born and raised. «A friend has passed away, a simple, humble person, a lover of clear thoughts and clean things», writes the former mayor Mario Bianchino, «We want to remember him with affection, esteem and a lot of gratitude, leaving the memory of his beautiful person, an important cultural trace that created aggregation and common interests in difficult historical moments”. AL.BO.
