On the afternoon of that 20 December, Mina is sad. Everything she does for him, ordinary things she’s done for so many years, makes her think: ‘I’m doing this for the last time.’ Overcome by anxiety, she’s frenetic. He asks her: ‘Have you been happy?’ One of those questions you’d always like to ask the person you love. For Mina it had been ‘a full and happy life, the best I could have imagined’. And so she tells him: ‘Come and take me with you, what will I do without you?’ ‘You’ll have plenty to do!’ he makes light of it.

It is that afternoon that Piero confesses to Mina: ‘Dying is no joke.’ On the evening of his last day, he checks his e-mails, responds to comments on the blog and then deletes everything. Around eleven o’clock, Piergiorgio says goodbye to the relatives and three of the Radical friends gathered at his bedside. The doctor approaches and asks: ‘Shall we proceed?’ For this last response Piero wants to use his voice. Breathless, he says ‘Yes.’ Mina then asks him: ‘Do you really want to?’ Piero blinks, just once, meaning ‘Yes.’ He dies shortly afterward, in the dignified manner he had requested and desired for so long, in compliance with the law.

Being a Catholic, as is Piero’s mother, Mina wants to observe the final obsequies in a church. However, she receives this reply from the Vicar’s office in Rome:

With regard to the request for ecclesiastical funeral rites for the late Mr. Piergiorgio Welby, the Vicariate of Rome informs you that it cannot grant such rites because, unlike suicide cases in which the absence of the circumstances of full awareness and deliberate consent is assumed, Mr Welby’s resolve to put an end to his own life was known; it was repeatedly and publicly affirmed, which is in conflict with Catholic doctrine.