Bologna, August 22, 2026 – The San Nicolò church in Calcara is packed for the final farewell to Alberto Cremonini, the nineteen-year-old who died on August 16 after 45 days of hospitalization following a road accident that occurred on July 2, just minutes after his oral high school graduation exam.
At least 500 people, both outside and inside the parish, are attending the mass, surrounding mother Roberta and father Ivano. Sitting among the front rows, a sea of very young people, Alberto’s peers, all called ‘Crema’, with a bandana tied around their wrists. The same bandana is also attached to the blue guitar next to the coffin, the very one Alberto used to bring on stage during live shows with his band Rebirth; the bandana is also wrapped around a microphone. The young people are silent, crying, and some are hugging. Overwhelmed by too much pain to bear.
Don Vincenzo: “Let’s help each other”
This is what Don Vincenzo Passarelli, who celebrated the service and is also a religion teacher at the Righi high school where Alberto attended the Human Sciences program, spoke about in his homily. “This pain is not empty, but has been placed in the hands of someone who experienced it personally and filled it with love. All the love we live is meant to grow more and more.”
Therefore, the invitation is to “help each other. Let’s stay close to one another, to the parents and friends. Let us live the experience of affection and love because we are in the hands of the one who said that affection must be carried through to the end. If love is true, it never ends.”
The friends’ farewell, the thoughts move everyone
At the end of the rite, also attended by Don Remo Borgatti, parish priest of Calcara, it was the friends who said goodbye to Crema, with thoughts that moved the entire community present at the funeral. “We could remember many things about you, but these are the ones closest to our hearts: your smile, your music, your willingness. It is your presence, your way of being, and your enthusiasm that we miss the most. Perhaps this is also why your absence is felt so deeply.”
But “in this pain, there is the sweetness of having known you. We will keep what you gave us.”
And so “saying goodbye to you also means this: seeing you again and recognizing you in the things you left behind. We thank you for being Crema to the very end.”
A school friend speaks of a “special desk mate. In class, you always stood out for your spontaneity and lightness. Have a good journey, keep playing from up there.”
The mass ended with a procession that reached the cemetery. Right after the hearse were Alberto’s mother and father.
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