Story By: Ana Lacasa, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Newsflash

A grieving Italian woman who was unable to see her 76-year-old father as he died from COVID-19 has penned this heartbreaking farewell letter to him.

Anna Mercalli paid tribute to her father Luciano Mercalli who founded the company Cerim – that makes shoe machinery – in the city of Vigevano in the north-western Italian province of Pavia.

She told local media: “Before he died, my father wrote to us ‘please do not come to see me. I am immortal, I cannot die. Hugs to everyone’.”

Anna added: “However, I am unable to find peace imagining him alone in that bed while slipping away. Was he scared? Did he suffer? Did his beautiful blue eyes cry?”

Anna said she wrote the letter, printed in the local newspaper, to tell her father all the things she couldn’t say when he was alive.

The letter said: “Hi Dad, a lot of people tell me that when I speak about you my eyes light up, and it could only be that way, you have always been the man in my life.

“You are my reference point for every act, the example to follow, the lighthouse for my life.”

Anna told local media: “My daughters drew hearts on paper and created a montage. I know the nurses put it on his table, at least he could have seen that.”

She added that her father “was terrified about the virus” after learning that elderly people are the most vulnerable.

Anna spoke of the last moment she saw her beloved dad: “He ended up spending 12 days in hospital. I saw him go into the ambulance and nothing else. A wave of the hand and he was gone.”

The ViralTab page is created by and dedicated to professional, independent freelance journalists. It is a place for us to showcase our work. When our news is sold to our media partners, we will include the link here.