He loved the Beatles, Mina and Celentano. Now he dances among the stars in the sky, wearing his beloved headphones. In the blink of an eye he said goodbye to the world, but without haste. Ignazio Curreli passed away at 77 despite science saying that boys like him, affected by trisomy 21 or if you like by Down syndrome, are placed on compulsory leave before the age of sixty. There is no news in the world of another person who, suffering from the same disease, lives as long as he did.

Miraculous

Born in Ilbono, the second of seven children in a family that, originally from Gadoni, has settled in Lanusei for a lifetime, he made fun of genetics, he dribbled its traps in a hundred dance steps. No one will ever know if the passion for music that was in his blood, shared with three younger brothers who owned one of the first free radio stations in Ogliastra, was truly a formidable ally. Certainly the long-lived sui generis in a land of long-lived people must have drunk an elixir of long life somewhere.

One breath was enough

He lived with Roberto, his brother, and Sandra, a sister-in-law, more than a sister to him, who cared for him until yesterday at dawn, when a gust of wind took him away. "One of his breaths was enough for me," she says, "to understand what he needed. One of his looks was enough to understand that he still recognized his brothers or nieces who came to visit him. And he prayed with Don Piergiorgio, our parish priest."

Fighter

Woe betide anyone who calls him a special boy. In this case, more than the science of education, common sense advises against it. It would be doing him a disservice. Ignazio Curreli has lived an extraordinary normality. An expert househusband, faithful squire of his mother Maria in the kitchen, an excellent fork. A stroke tried to send him to the other world about fifteen years ago. "I don't know if Ignazio will make it through the night," an intensive care doctor said. He was wrong. He replied that the time had not yet come. He didn't just make it through the night. The next day he devoured a plate of lasagna and then wrote a prodigious story that lasted until yesterday. "We could call him a fighter, without exaggerating," says Paolo, one of the brothers. "Ignazio, love," Sandra continues to call him while she caresses his freshly shaved cheeks ("the beard? Indispensable") and, in the house of Su Tauli, many friends arrive to offer condolences.

Hymn to the prodigy

There is no room for a funeral lament. The requiem is rather a hymn to the prodigy. Shared by those who are luminaries in the field of longevity. "The fact that a person affected by trisomy 21 lives 77 years - says Gianni Pes, professor of genetics at the University of Sassari - is in itself exceptional. Perhaps in the past there has been another case of this kind in the world. But I don't remember more. Usually the average life of these people is around 56-57 years. So this man represents the confirmation that the longevity of Ogliastra and Barbagia di Seulo also extends to people with pathologies that determine a shortening of life".

Among the stars

Whoever accompanies Ignazio in the hour of farewell - the funeral will be celebrated today at 3 pm, in the sanctuary dedicated to the Madonna d'Ogliastra - will be able to call themselves the last witness of an extraordinary journey, led by a man who made fun of evil and of a destiny that science was unable to sew on him. Ignazio got rid of it. Until yesterday. He said goodbye in silence, pure and ready to rise to the stars, which will now smile on him eternally.

Tonio Pillonca

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