After the Last Breath

Millions of people around the world are familiar with the Oscar awards ceremony held once a year. A part of this event includes paying tribute to a number of prominent individuals who were active within the movie industry and who passed away sometime during the interval since the previous ceremony. Those few minutes make it possible to think about and to appreciate the contributions of those persons that have crossed over. The memory of those individuals will surely remain strong as their movies continue to be watched, as biographies about their lives are published, and as numerous articles are written about them.

Whilst thinking about this yearly tribute, one may wonder about the thousands of people who die annually without any tributes being broadcast all over the world. As suggested above, when a famous person dies, various items remain which allow others to acknowledge their existence. To mention just one example, the grave site of such an individual may be visited by hundreds of people every year. 

What, on the other hand, is left after a less popular human being takes their last breath? There is no doubt that hardly anyone alive at the time of writing this article would know anything about Andreana Cuschieri (nee' Micallef). The latter is my paternal great-great grandmother. 

Following some research that I had carried out, I discovered that Andreana lived in Valletta. She was Giuseppe Cuschieri's second wife. She was the mother of several children, one of whom was Professor/Fr Anatasio Cuschieri. The only photo that I have seen of her was on the memorial card printed sometime after she died. She is buried at the Addolorata Cemetery, but there is no head stone to mark her final resting place. Similar to countless women who lived during the late 19th and early 20th century, most of her time was probably devoted to raising the children and engaged in other activities that were traditionally associated with womanhood. 

Andreana was not a famous actress or writer. She was never in the limelight. At first, one could say that nothing much was left behind after she took her last breath at her home in St Lucia Street (Strada Santa Lucia) in Valletta in 1913. To what extent, however, is this argument really accurate?

In actual fact, whenever a person dies, some things do remain. Going back to Andreana Cuschieri, her physical remains are possibly still buried or they could now be part of other organisms or objects. Some of her genetic material lives on in her descendants, which include myself. Her name together with some other biographical details can still be found on the death certificate which could be obtained from the Public Registry. Various contracts signed by some of her children feature her name to confirm their identity. The memorial card showing her photo still exists. The Addolorata Cemetery also has some information about her. Some of the objects that she owned and treasured may now be in the homes of one or more of her descendants or in the homes of persons who decided to acquire the said items. For those who believe, her spirit is also somewhere in the universe. 

Unfortunately, I have not come across any detailed written material about Andreana's character. I do not know what food she liked to prepare or eat, whether she had the patience of a saint or whether she was short-tempered, and I also lack information about the medical conditions she may have struggled with throughout her life. If such details are not recorded and preserved, it will be extremely difficult for future generations to know this information.

After a person's last breath, some activities are indeed interrupted. If, say, someone used to attend Mass in a specific church on a daily basis, death will interrupt that activity. It is, however, mistaken to think that once a human being dies, nothing remains. Death can never negate the fact that a person existed for a given period of time and that certain things continue to exist even after the last breath.

I would like to conclude by quoting a few lines from a very moving book entitled My Lovely Wife: A Memoir of Madness and Hope. I finished reading the latter fairly recently. Written by Mark Lukach, it is largely about the author's experience in taking care of his wife who suffered from several episodes of mental illness over a number of years. There were times when the author's wife talked about committing suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge into the San Francisco Bay. Whilst contemplating the scenario, Lukach focused on her continued existence following her physical demise: "She would still be in my life, in both her presence and her absence. Her clothes, her possessions, her hair in the drain of the shower, even her smell on the blanket she wrapped herself in every night. Her absence would be everywhere. I would miss her in everything. I would tell people about her and keep her alive in my stories. She would not be done. Her body, whether discovered or not, would join the land and the water and return to the elements, from dust you are and to dust you will return. Nothing dissolves into nothing. We are never done..." (pp. 104-105)