Palma“She died of sadness, just over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life.” This has been the only explanation that the family of the Franco-Iranian cartoonist and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi has given about her passing. It is an explanation so profound in its simplicity that, when I read the news, I was struck, speechless.
Then I had access to the obituary written by the Italian writer Roberto Saviano, a farewell that can be summarized in one word: 'beautiful'. “When pain takes up all the available space, when it doesn’t even leave a crack through which a little light can pass, then something happens that is not death from illness nor a conscious choice: it is simply the end of the tension that held everything together”. It is difficult to explain a death like this as well as Saviano does.
To say that someone has died of sadness is almost a revolutionary act, because Western societies and capitalism want us to spend a lot of money in the pursuit of happiness. We cannot be sad, we must eliminate this negative feeling from our bodies and brains. We must seek our well-being with whatever tools are needed: a coach, an infusion, yoga classes, or an afternoon of shopping, as it is well known that new clothes cheer us up a lot. And we don’t stop too much to think about how we truly feel, because it’s not worth it and we waste precious minutes of our pursuit of happiness. Smile until your cheeks hurt, show those teeth that you’ve worked so hard to whiten, and if wrinkles appear, just inject a little Botox from time to time and everything will be fixed.
That Satrapi died of sadness makes me sad. It is the only tribute I can pay to people like her: exhibitionism of grief. She chose not to forget, neither her country nor her husband. And, as Saviano points out, she also chose not to be a victim, and works like Persepolis demonstrate this.
Dying of sadness is giving meaning to death, even if it is a horrible idea to think about. I know. There are many people with depression who could die of sadness and do not, because they receive help or simply because they have the strength to overcome it. But here we enter extremely personal territory that it is not lawful to judge.
I am left with Saviano’s last words: “Your light remains, your void remains. Goodbye, brave woman”.
