Gustavo Cerati: 1,500 days of agony, the hope of a mother and the letters of Pope Francis

2023-09-04 12:38:25

Gustavo Cerati entered a coma on May 17, 2010, after having decompensated after a show in Venezuela, and died on September 4, 2014. There were 1,571 days of agony during which his mother, Lilian Clark, never lost hope. for her son to wake up.

“I had some actions that gave me hope,” said Lilian, who was excited every time the former Soda Stereo vocalist moved his body, squeezed his hand or his heart rate went up. Therefore, she maintained the confidence until the last day. However, not even the prayer of Pope Francis managed to avoid the sad ending.

The hopes of Gustavo Cerati’s mother: illusion until the last day

Gustavo Cerati’s last birthday was on August 11, 2014. By then, he had been in a coma for more than four years. However, his mother, Lilian Clark, kept hoping that her son would wake up. That day, like all the previous ones, she went to visit him at the clinic where he was hospitalized.

Gustavo Cerati died on September 4, 2014, due to respiratory arrest. Photo: Instagram @cerati

“When I arrive, he squeezes my hand hard. I look at the monitors and see that she gets excited. I know that she is. I tell him how the day is, I sing to him, I talk to him a lot. I think that she is being reborn and I want her to feel that he is accompanied. He moves the body. There is something in it that is alive, present, so how can we not continue? This is slow and hard, but he sits down and he’s really well taken care of, he’s got perfect skin. If you see him, he is whole, it is as if he were just asleep, ”she recounted on August 11, 2014, convinced that the musician would sooner or later regain consciousness.

And he completed: “We must continue investigating to see what happens in the world with this disease. I tell him ‘you are resting after so many years of work’ because Gustavo really overworked himself, too much responsibility for many years and excesses sometimes have their unfortunate price”.

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Cerati died less than a month later, on September 4, 2014, due to respiratory arrest. Her mother recounted on December 31 of that year how she was grieving and spoke of the hopes she maintained throughout her son’s hospitalization.

“There I am… physically going through some discomfort and the rest is a long process that I will have to go through. I cannot transfer this to anyone, I just have to live it and overcome it myself. They were years of great tension and pain, of hope, but at the same time mixed with great fear”, he pointed out.

In addition, she spoke of the signs that had pushed her to believe that her son could succeed: “When I arrived I would say ‘Hello Gustavito’, I would hold his hand tightly and he would hold my hand tightly. He had some actions that gave me hope. I looked at the monitors, I’m not stupid, they don’t lie. The monitors, when he was excited by something, raised the pulse. I saw all that, a part of him was there.

The letters and the prayer of Pope Francis

The plastic artist Gustavo Masó, who worked with Lilian Clark, was encouraged to send a letter to Pope Francis on August 20, 2013, asking him to pray for the musician. Shortly after, Bergoglio’s response arrived, also in his own handwriting. Then, Masó read the message on the program Thank you for coming, thank you for being there, which paid homage to Cerati.

Nine years after the death of Gustavo Cerati. Photo: Instagram @cerati

“Mr. Gustavo Masó, thank you for your letter of the past 20. It helped me to reconnect with Gustavo. Because accustomed life archives us. And life goes on. Wait. It disappears and reappears. The cruelest archivist is oblivion. Our Borges was right when he told us that there was only one thing I did not find. It is oblivion. Yes, from God. But between us: oblivion exists and it is cruel. Thank you for having blown the breezes of a memory”, began the text.

And he continued: “I beg you to tell Lilian that her testimony does me good, her courage in continuing to hope and that I am with her. It is difficult to say anything in front of the relationship as sacred as that of a mother with a child. But accept my silence made prayer. I’m at your disposal”.

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That was not the only time that the Pope had contact with the environment of the former leader of Soda Stereo. After Cerati’s death, her mother showed a letter that Francisco had sent directly to her: “Dear Lady. During these weeks I kept her very much in mind and I prayed for you and for her son. May the Lord support her and he grant her her deepest peace. And please, don’t forget to pray for me, for what I need. May Jesus bless her and her Holy Virgin take care of her. Cordially. Francisco”.