«It hurts me to think that he died there on the bench, alone. I wonder: but if he had been in the dormitory, would he have been saved?». Roberta Campanihead of the association The Poor People’s Closet from Monza, knew Massimo well, the homeless man found dead last week in a park in Monza. It was with the association that Campani launched a fundraiser in favor of his homeless friend. «The idea came to me after the funeral, even the one celebrated in solitude. There were only 15 of us in the church: not an epigraph, not a wall notice, nothing that could remind us even outside the church. I told myself that Massimo deserved at least a dignified burial, so I started the collection among fellow citizens.”
57 years old, Massimo was a person «good and polite, certainly with her past and her present», says Campani who, to concretely help those in difficulty, six years ago created the association with which he distributes food, clothes, shoes and household goods to anyone who requests them.
«The first time we met he asked me for help to go and ask for a divorce. I had helped him, even giving him suitable clothes. Then, over the years, every time we met again on the street we remembered the episode and tried to laugh about it: Massimo was a beautiful person.”
For about ten days Massimo had no longer had access to the city dormitory. On climatically tiring days for everyone, the sultriness and extreme heat may have further weighed on an already generally fragile condition, testing Massimo to the point of dying. «They found him in the morning at Nei park, lying on the bench, with a small bag of food next to him. He probably felt ill during the night”, says the volunteer.
A death that truly leaves you speechless that sense of loneliness and precariousness that Massimo himself must have felt several times in his life. The 118 health workers intervened on site with an ambulance and a medical vehicle, as well as a State Police patrol, but it was not possible to do anything other than confirm the death.
All always in solitude. Now the fundraiser will at least serve to create a plaque to worthily remember Massimo, buried in the area of the Monza cemetery intended for cases of poverty. A gesture of care and humanity for a man who many remember with sympathy.
