It is clear that a death in a small community, like ours at Longoio (with less than fifty inhabitants), is especially felt. Most death notices (so prevalent in Italy, where funerals take place within a handful of days after decease) in our area show the age of most people who have passed to a better world are well into their eighties, if not their nineties and in some cases over one hundred. For example, Emma Morano from Verbania, North Italy, then oldest person alive and the last survivor of the 19th century, died in 2017 at the age of 117.
It was, therefore, something of a real shock when Luca Pazzaglia, one of Giorgia’s two sons, died the other day at the relatively young age of 53. Many will remember Giorgia as once running the now unfortunately defunct local store in our village. (Giorgia was also an excellent baker – fortunately that part of the business is still carried on by a younger generation).
Luca was not only a business man in our valley’s paper mill industry but also a former football player for Aglianese and Montecatini clubs, promoted to second division in the 1990’s.
Luca had been feeling depressed for a couple of years and doctors just accepted that that was what he was suffering from. Unfortunately it was much worse: a TAC (Computed Axial Tomography scan) at Pisa’s Cisanello hospital revealed he had a brain tumour. Luca spent his last days in Milan’s special cancer hospital.
As Fabrizio Giovannini, general manager of Valdinievole Montecatini football club said: “We are all shocked. Luca was a great person, full of humanity and everybody’s friend “.
Luca’s funeral will take place this Saturday at 3 pm at the Pieve di Controni.
(Incidentally, I too was incorrectly diagnosed and, just in time thanks to the insistence of my wife, visited a specialist for a second opinion. I now know of, unfortunately, too many cases where wrong analysis has occurred. That’s why I’m so sad that the correct diagnosis for Luca’s ‘depression’ was discovered too late.
So sad this but hey it is also each and everyone’s fate in ths life anyway maybe Luca has now found Peace and Happiness in another dimension on another sphere! RIP Luca Pazzaglia and our sincerest condolences to your sweet Mother Giorgia sisters and brother. We sorely miss all Giorgias hard work in that so very well stocked shop in our village it was indeed a sad day when that shut. It seems also that where Stella lived that there was a bar there. I would be very interested to know more about Longoio when it first appeared in the area I believe that it was a religious community. Now less and less people live around and about on a permanent basis this too is a sad reflection as they too have died. Less and less is being done with the upkeep of the whole area ie roads paths as trees fall and no one bothers any longer to clear them. But hey there is Spring in the air bulbs are showing and peeping through the ground