INFOBAE
The last wish of a Malvinas hero and a love story beyond life
Before leaving for the war, Captain Luis Castagnari asked his wife that, if he did not return, he wanted to be buried next to his little son who died of cancer at the age of three. She fought for 36 years to fulfill that last wish. On December 5, 2018, in a historic trip, the body of the soldier was transferred from the islands to Río Cuarto, Córdoba. In this chronicle, the end of a story that moved the country
For
Gaby Cociffi
January 8, 2019
Editorial Director of Infobae |
[email protected]
December 21, 1973. Luis Darío José Castagnari and María Cristina Scavarda on their wedding day
In her wedding dress, the long tulle framed by a flower crown, the rosary clutched in her hands, she walked smiling towards the altar where the man of her life was
for her.
Firm and moved in his military dress uniform, under the six arches that crown the atrium of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary parish, in Río Cuarto, Ensign
Luis Darío José Castagnari took
María Cristina Scavarda 's hand to promise before the cross that they would love each other forever.
Then, delicately, they exchanged gold wedding bands with the date that marked the beginning of the life they had dreamed of together: December 21, 1973.
They lived together eight years, had five children. On April 1, 1982, he left for war.
Forty-five years later, on the same day and at almost the same time, with a pink lace blouse, the rosary of the Virgin of San Nicolás clutched in her hands,
María Cristina once again walked towards that altar where she had been so happy.
But this time he wasn't there. Or maybe yes.
Wrapped in an Argentine flag with the sun embroidered in gold threads, the urn with the ashes of postmortem captain Castagnari, a fallen hero in the Malvinas, rested on a table surrounded by white gladioli.
And she would arrive, excited and alone, up to that same altar to fulfill the promise she had made to him the day he left for war.
December 21, 2018. María Cristina with three of her four children -Martín, Roxana and Guillermo- in the same church where 45 years earlier she married Captain Castagnari (Daniel Ramonell)
"If I don't come back from the Malvinas I want you to bring my body and bury me next to Gustavito," Castagnari had asked him before the final kiss at 5 in the morning on April 1, 1982.
The two understood, without question, what those words meant because the pain was still intact. Gustavito was her eldest son, who died of cancer on January 7, 1978, when he was only three years old.
"I promise ," he told her as they embraced one last time.
Castagnari in Malvinas: fell on May 29, 1982, while trying to protect his men during a brutal British bombing
Fifty-eight days later, in the Malvinas Islands, at eleven twenty on the night of May 29, First Lieutenant
Castagnari fell during a fierce British bombardment of the Puerto Argentino airport , while running with his radio in hand. , looking for a refuge for his men. The members of the Pucará squad managed to get to safety.
"The Fury", he could not: he was hit by the splinters of a missile.
Since February 1983 his remains lay in the Darwin cemetery.
The urn with the ashes of the Malvinas hero wrapped in an Argentine flag, the photo of the captain and his little son Gustavito, and the mass celebrated by Father Morelli (Daniel Ramonell).
María Cristina
fought for 36 years to fulfill that last wish ,
with that promise . To achieve this, she had to move the body of her husband from the islands to the mainland. The bureaucracy and the officials who did not give answers made the road long and difficult.
In 2015 she returned to the islands, and kneeling in front of her husband's grave in Darwin, she cried for the first time in years: "It was an explosion. I hugged her cross and cried. I lay on the grave and asked her forgiveness for not to have complied with what he had asked me to do. I also promised him that I was not going to give up, that I was going to keep trying."
2015. Castagnari's widow embraces her husband's cross in Darwin
Many doors were closed, until British ambassador
Mark Kent and businessman
Eduardo Eurnekian , from Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, were moved by her story and offered to help her. Together they planned the historic trip that brought him back from the islands to Córdoba, so that he could finally be with her, her children -Martín Adolfo, Guillermo Oscar, Walter Rodolfo and Roxana Patricia- and her beloved of her Gustavito.
On December 5, 2018, the body of Captain Castagnari was transferred from the Malvinas Islands to Río Cuarto, Córdoba (Thomas Khazki)
On Thursday, December 5, 2018, in the Material Area of the Río Cuarto Airport, the private flight that
brought the body of the hero home from the Malvinas landed. There was a moving military ceremony, a mass with the body present, and finally, his remains were cremated.
On the date of their wedding anniversary, María Cristina prepared to close the mourning and fulfill her promise, there in the Church where they were married and where the ashes of her little Gustavito lie.
"Mission accomplished, love, today we are at peace," he said in front of the photo of Luis and Gustavito, lovingly framed for the ceremony, which they accompanied from the altar at the farewell.
But
what was going to be a goodbye, turned into a moving act of love . It was a surprise: no one knew what she had thought in the solitude of her home, while she looked again and again -with emotion and nostalgia- at her wedding photos.
Without telling her children, María Cristina decided to renew her wedding vows (Daniel Ramonell)
Without telling her children, María Cristina had decided
to renew her marriage vows . Secretly, she had sent the wedding rings to a jeweler to be set together, and she would engrave on the back of her this new date when she would feel close to the love of her life again.
"I wanted to renew my union vows with Luis, because I'm still in love with him ," María Cristina tells
Infobae today . "Only the priest and I knew that this was going to happen, it was a very big surprise for my children."
Before the end of the mass, Father Morelli called Martín, Guillermo and Roxana to the altar with their mother. The brothers looked at each other without understanding what was happening. Holding hands, they watched as the priest was looking for a precious little box lined in red velvet. Without saying anything, he opened it, and
took out the set wedding rings .
He had the alliances set with a jeweler, to the date of his wedding -December 21, 1973- he added the date of the renewal of his love for the captain who gave his life for the Homeland: December 21, 2018 (Daniel Ramonell )
"María Cristina and Luis are reunited today out of love ," announced the parish priest. And he gave the rings to Martín, who delicately and with tears in his eyes slipped them into his mother's ring finger.
"I swore to love you until death do us part. Today I renew my love, until God unites us again ," said the hero's widow at the altar.
There were tears. Many. Of emotion, of nostalgia, of memories, of absences, but also of happiness.
Luis Castagnari asked his wife before leaving for the war: "If I don't come back, I want you to bring my body and bury me next to Gustavito" (Daniel Ramonell)
"
I felt as if his soul had entered into mine . I felt him very close, next to me, as if we had remarried. I wanted to remain united with him in these vows. The eight years we lived together were the happiest I would repeat every second of my life with Luis," he confesses today.
Then came the blessing. And they all walked towards the cinerary. Martin hugged his father's urn tight. Together, they dumped the ashes where Gustavito's are. A plaque - the only one in the parish - marked that night and will mark forever:
"Here lie the remains of the national hero captain (pm) Luis Darío José Castagnari."
The united family dumped the ashes of Luis Castagnari in the same parish cinerary where Gustavito's lie: thus, they fulfilled the last wish of their father and husband (Daniel Ramonell)
"I know that he is where he wanted, together with our little son. I feel at peace.
'I did it, love ,' I told him. This was also the best gift I could give my children. Now we have him close , he came home, we can visit him, pray to him and be with him", he is moved.
"It was not easy to say goodbye. I had to take the urn to church two hours before, because it was leaving him, running out of him. But the ceremony was beautiful, very peaceful, and I felt happy with Gustavito and that filled my soul." , add.
"Luis had always wanted to see the islands and he wanted to die for the Homeland, so he had told me: 'If I could choose how to end my life, I would
ask God to die defending the Homeland.' be with our little son", he concludes.
And while in the background her grandchildren can be heard playing in the garden of the house, María Cristina sheds a tear, just one, for the only man she loved in her entire life.