BRINGING UP NONNO’S BODY by Lisa Clifford
My husband’s pallor had turned an unpleasant green. Even though the temperature was only about five degrees, a sheen of perspiration glistened across his forehead. The body of his father, Nonno Giovanni, was being exhumed and Paolo was not handling it well.
My husband’s pallor had turned an unpleasant green. Even though the temperature was only about five degrees, a sheen of perspiration glistened across his forehead. The body of his father, Nonno Giovanni, was being exhumed and Paolo was not handling it well. Neither was I. My husband kept averting his eyes. I tried not to peek but curiosity prevailed. There were thumps and bumps as the grave digger threw Nonno’s bones into the ossuary box and I couldn’t resist. Plus, the grave digger was thrilled at Nonno’s decomposition.
‘Marvellous!’ he kept calling, as he tossed. Apparently there was every chance Nonno had mummified. My hairdresser told me that when they dug up her mum, her body was intact. They had to leave her underground for another five years before trying again. She couldn’t tell me why her mum resisted decay. Apparently it is not uncommon in Italy to exhume bodies and find them intact. The grave digger was simply happy he didn’t have to manoeuvre his bobcat back into the tiny graveyard again.
Nonno’s coffin had been in the ground for more than the ten year time limit. Sixteen years in fact, and unearthing corpses is Italian law. Space is at a premium in Italian cemeteries, has been for decades. Space is at a premium in everycemetery. Room must be made for more bodies. Still, the way burial works here in my adopted homeland is upsetting and I struggle with the ritual. With selfish relief, I saw that my husband did too.
As a general rule of thumb, burial in Italy works like this. Every cemetery is divided into sections and you rent a section, or grave plot, of that cemetery for the granted ten years. Then, when the Council of Cemeteries, or whatever it is, deem it the right time, the body of your loved one is exhumed, their bones retrieved and put into an ossuary box. That little bone box is then slid into small square cavities in all the cemetery walls. The walls are high and have levels and levels of faces in photos with names. All the little boxes in the wall are adorned with vases of plastic flowers. They also have candles, eternal lights - battery run flames that twinkle like thousands of fireflies in the darkness.
For years Italians have eyed me doubtfully when I told them everyone I know in Australia has been cremated. It’s as though I am suggesting something unimaginably awful.
‘Dio no – God no,’ says my mother-in-law. ‘I would not like to be burnt to ashes and scattered. In Italy we prefer to be buried, in our favourite clothes. Dust to dust.’
Burying bodies comes from Genesis 3:19. ‘In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it was thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.’
But this practise of ‘bringing up the body’ had taken its toll on my family all week. Had grandpa Giovanni’s body rotted entirely? Had his wooden coffin deteriorated fully? Had his teeth and hair survived the sixteen years he’d been in the ground? These questions were asked over dinner as we prepared to witness the event. A family member, by law, must be present for the exhumation. My mother-in-law came too. She acted as though it was all a bit of a special event. Which I suppose it was.
‘I remember that suit,’ she cried. ‘Look! You can still see the material. He loved that suit. I see his shoes didn’t last though.’ No averted eyes for my mother-in-law. She had no trouble watching. She was very accepting of it all.
I promised to accompany my husband to his village purely to give moral support. For him, it was as though his father was dying all over again. He felt as though he had to go through his dad’s death not once, but twice. He didn’t want to see his father’s decayed body. I don’t blame him. Nonna thought her son should have been more sensible.
‘There is life and there is death,’ she said. ‘This is the journey of death.’ Yes, but how many times do you have to travel that road?
In Italy the dead are respected, honoured. Loved ones are visited, prayed for, consulted and chatted to. November 1st, All Saints Day or Il Giorno della Morte, (the day of the dead) is a special day dedicated to the dear departed. November 1st is when you visit your loved ones in cemeteries. It’s a public holiday and Italians travel across Italy to respectfully call on their dead. On the same day many Anglo Saxons celebrate Halloween. In a wave of plastic pumpkins and other non-biodegradable landfill we fabricate spooky cemeteries and scary outfits. Trick or treating seems a rather flippant way of remembering our dead. Yet, as I stand beside Nonno’s grave (trying to block my husband’s view) I can’t help thinking Nonno’s remains look like something out of a Michael Jackson video. It’s all so gruesome here.
I have no personal preference as to how we should remember our dead. Memorialising a death seems like a private affair to me, a personal choice, cultural practises notwithstanding. But I sure am glad I don’t have to exhume my parents. In Australia we tend to scatter our loved ones to the wind, then visit that place to salute their lives and our love. I’m glad that’s my last memory of them.
Story and photo copyright Lisa Clifford, 2021
Instagram: @lisacliffordwriter