“My wife Lucia had a brain tumor, I begged God to let her die”- Corriere.it

They welcomed him into the studio with a standing ovation, confirming how much the public loves Lino Banfi. And he chose the living room of his friend Silvia Toffanin’s Verissimo to share her immense pain over the death of his beloved wife Lucia Lagrasta, who passed away last February. «It’s hard, it’s hard – admitted the actor, when the presenter asked him how he was living these weeks of mourning -. People who have lived together for a lifetime, stuck like glue and paper, if you suddenly tear the glue and paper, there’s no way to put it back together. It’s all so confusing, strange.” Barely managing to hold back his emotion, Banfi then retraced his wife’s illness. “I was following the Alzheimer’s script, I followed it well, I knew the part by heart. The professor said to me: “Lino, we are now in a phase in which every film he sees, every program he sees, he says he has already seen. Get used to this.” And I, when it happened, replied that I didn’t remember and she: “Maybe you weren’t there that day”. Then the professor told me to tell her that I had seen them too, so she’s happier than her: “Otherwise she’ll understand that there’s something wrong”. And I: “Now I remember, I saw it, I saw it. Let’s see it again if you like” and so we went on”.

But at some point everything changed. «Suddenly the script, the film, the scenography changed – continued the actor – After Alzheimer’s came the epileptic crises, so he took antiepileptics which are terrible drugs, but they are needed to stop some things. After a while they said to me: “Lino, we are sorry to tell you, but we did the MRI and something else took over, you can see some spots on the brain”. After two days, brain tumor. A whole different script, you don’t understand anything anymore. I’ll tell you something I haven’t told anyone yet. Although I am very Catholic, that day I got angry, but that anger, within two days – when I understood the true situation – turned into a plea: “I beg you, let her die”, we have reached this point”.

After recalling one of Lucia’s favorite songs – namely, “Five days” by Michele Zarrillo – Banfi faced the present. “How am I going to get used to living? It’s difficult. Lucia almost died with a smile on her lips, because she no longer suffered. She wasn’t conscious. Am I scared? In 4 years I will be afraid, because fear makes nine. Today I’m 86 and I’ve decided that after 90, I want 2 years of extra time, so they still have to give me 6. In the meantime I’m talking to whoever is responsible (God, ed) to give Lucia a place. She died in the same days as Maurizio Costanzo, they must have gone together to ask for judgments. I asked if they make her my guardian angel, because there is a song by Renga that I like and that goes “Angelo, take care of her” and which in this case would become: “Angelo, take care of him”».