“AND aren’t you married?”. No. “And you don’t have any children?” No. This mini-interrogationwhich was once asked to me to test my residual propensity to start a family, for some time now has implied completely different secondary questions.
There are few who give voice to you, but those who, overcoming the embarrassment, manage to do so are not entirely wrong in asking themselves certain questions. The main one is: «But later…». And here we mean precisely “after”, at the end of it all, «…what will you do with your things?».
Leaving aside the legitimate shares, which are not worth discussing, to those who voluntarily leave what has accumulated during life, for a single person, after a certain age, it is actually a topic to start dealing with when one has full mental faculties.
Antonella Baccaro (photo by Carlo Furgeri Gilbert).
There are many schools of thought. I quote the solution suggested to me by those who are especially worried about me, in perspective: adopt someone. As if it were easy for a single person. Italian law allows it only in some residual cases that are too complicated to manage as age advances. But a recent ruling by the Constitutional Court has made it possible when it comes to the adoption of foreign minors residing abroad.
The Kessler twins in the 1980s (photo Getty Images/Ullstein Bild).
“Do good and good will be done to you. Later – of course – when you need it.” Which seems to me to be an imperfect syllogism as well as a grimly utilitarian reasoning. In short, I would avoid becoming the 5.0 version of Aunt March of Little womenthe one whose demise is hoped for.
But you could do worse. You can decide to waste everything wisely, just having funas long as you can and as long as you have. The “epicurean” school presupposes accepting a certain amount of risk, because calculating that resources will run out exactly along with us is only possible by setting a certain horizon. Feasible in Switzerland, so to speak.
And then there is the middle ground: enjoying life the right way and doing good. Which is what the Kessler twins chose, leaving their belongings to, among others, Doctors Without Borders, Unicef, animal rights activists and the Knights of Malta. The mix can be amended. The reassuring idea. And amen.
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Antonella Baccaro’s articles on I Woman and on Corriere della Sera.