“Non voglio morire”

In a hospital setting, an elderly Paraguayan woman, lost in delirium, repeatedly whispers "Non voglio morire", Italian for "I don't want to die." The phrase, spoken in a language she hasn't used since childhood, carries a desperate weight, yet nurse Isabel understands the underlying plea without a translator. Isabel gently covers the woman with blankets, her heart aching at the sight of a foreigner dying far from home.

As Isabel offers comfort, the woman's eyes, once clouded with confusion, begin to clear. She looks at Isabel with a tenderness born of empathy, then pleads in Guarani, "Mamita, make them take me home, che a manosé che rupape. Ahechase la che planta kuera, ahetuse la che rosa...", a plea to return home, to see her plants and her roses.

Isabel embraces her, cradling her until the patient seems to calm, perhaps dreaming of youth and health. The woman begins to murmur and sing an Italian ditty her Uncle Arnaldo taught her long ago, a melody from a time when she was the cherished queen of her home. The memory triggers a flood of fragmented recollections, shadows of children, long, arduous journeys through a desert of absence, and the searing pain of loneliness.

She finds herself walking on burning sands, desperately seeking refuge in her "casita de Lambaré," her little house in Lambaré. The nurse believes she is asleep, but the woman is actually running like the wind through green meadows, her feet barely touching the ground in her urgent quest to return to her beloved garden. Finally, she glimpses the familiar front gallery, its cool shade beckoning her forward. Driven by impatience, she rushes towards the entrance, only to find people waiting for her on the gallery.

“

Mamita, make them take me home, che a manosé che rupape. Ahechase la che planta kuera, ahetuse la che rosa...