All these friends, where are you?
A few weeks ago, Luciano Ligabue’s latest album, Arrivederci Mostro, was released, preceded by the release of the single “A shot to the soul” from which the opening and closing quotes of this post are taken. At the same time as the presentation of the new album, Ligabue gave some interviews, including one to weekly Vanity Fair , addressing a theme very dear to us: that of prenatal mourning. 06.06.2010
In response to a question from the journalist who asked him for information on the aggressive and bitter tones of the song “Dear my Francesco”, an open letter to Francesco Guccini, Ligabue recounts an important episode in his recent life:
«Towards the end of 2008 I went through a difficult personal moment. My partner (Barbara, from whom he had Linda, 5 years old, ed) lost a child. She was pregnant in the sixth month and, when it gets to that point, you can do nothing but give birth to him and then bury him ».
The song is a letter that Ligabue sent to Francesco Guccini, as an ideal response to the 1976 song “L’avvelenata”, historical protest piece by the Emilian singer-songwriter in which he threw arrows against the show business of the time and against a certain genre of artists (for those who don’t know it this is a link to the song on youtube – attention, the text is very explicit). Ligabue still tells us that, when he made him listen to it during his birthday party, Guccini commented: “You must have been really angry.” The reason for this anger was precisely the intrauterine death of her child, a private event, certainly stressful for Luciano and his partner and probably also for little Linda.
“It was a tough time. It brought out things that have nothing to do with what I just said, but that pushed me to deal with the falsity of certain people. “
Even a successful artist like Ligabue, a VIP, a man certainly without economic problems and, as he himself says, with “many privileges”, could not escape the drama of death, nor the thousand misunderstandings that must be faced in the process of prenatal bereavement.
In tune with the experience of many of us, for example, there comes a moment in which colleagues, acquaintances, contacts in the workplace and in everyday life begin to underestimate the impact that an event like this can have on life. relational, on balance and also on a person’s working life (ours forum is full of stories describing these situations). Situations in which bereavement is minimized or denied, situations in which friends, relatives or complete strangers feel they have the right (or duty) to have their say on an event that they do not actually understand; situations that Ligabue exemplifies by singing:
And then forward another: “with what you earn you are silent”.
Go ahead with another: “with what you earn, smile in the photo”.
Then
Dear my Francesco, we have many privileges,
but these certainly do not include scarring
of those who want to talk, going on the embrace,
of things about which he does not understand a ca..o.
It’s still
There is no worse deaf than those who do not want to hear,
you think about those who don’t hear and then want to talk about it …
Listen in the light of the experience told by Ligabue, in these sentences you can find very common experiences and emotions in parents who have suffered perinatal loss. In particular, the sense of loneliness, the feeling that something unique in the world has happened to you, and the anger, the desire to split the world and turn back time.
Talking about it is the best solution. To share the pain, to mourn and to break indifference. It is extremely important to talk about perinatal loss, both for those who suffer it (role of self-help), and in general as information for the general public. This has always been our opinion and therefore we can only thank Ligabue for having wanted to publicly express his pain, as a gesture of solidarity for the thousands of people who are in Italy facing the same situation, and also the editorial staff of Vanity Fair, once again at the forefront of the problem of unborn children, after thearticle on CiaoLapo Onlus published in the first issue of the year.
Thanks Liga for this blow to the soul, and good luck.
and every time it is a dull blow to the soul.
How many times have you been missing, how many times will you be missing,
a blow to the circle and a blow to the soul.
