Since early morning, room 17 of the La Paz funeral home in Madrid, where the funeral chapel of Carlos and Caritina Goyanes was set up, did not stop receiving visits from friends and family to pray and give a hug to their family.
The truth is that there was not a soul inside and that human warmth permeated with love and emotion every minute of a wake that ended with a mass concelebrated by four priests at 2:00 p.m. in the chapel of the center. Cari Lapique could barely say a word. Sitting next to her sister Miriam and her daughter Carla, she shed all the tears that a person is capable of having and received kisses and hugs from so many friends that I doubt she can remember who was there.
In room 17 there was the coffin of her daughter Caritina and the ashes of her husband, as well as a host of white flower wreaths. White, the symbol of purity, predominated throughout. Flowers from her mother, her husband and children, from her cousins, her sister, her nephews… Next to the coffin, a group of Caritina’s friends from her Emmaus retreats sang the songs they usually sing at these gatherings on guitar. It was precisely at an Emmaus retreat where five years ago Caritina found a faith that she had never felt in this way before, and to which her family now clings to in order to cope with her loss.
A long list of friends and acquaintances came to say their last goodbyes. From Isabel Preysler, who had landed from the United States the day before on her way to Marbella and so delayed her stay on the Costa del Sol to be able to attend the funeral. She did so in the company of her daughter Tamara and her son-in-law Íñigo Onieva, with whom she also went. Nuria González, Ana Hermosilla, who has also recently been widowed, the model Nieves Álvarez, Silvia Gómez Cuétara, and of course Cari’s close friend, Maribel Yébenes, who also lost her husband a year ago while on holiday.
A very emotional moment was when Caritina’s widower, whom everyone calls Matos (Antonio), came to the door of the funeral home to greet his two children, Pedrito and Mini Cari. The children wanted to be present at all times to support their father and grandmother and to say goodbye to their mother and grandfather. Together with their cousins, Carla and Jorge’s children, they were there with a fortitude that not even many adults are able to endure. Ana Rosa Quintana, José María García, Francisco Rivera, Colate Vallejo-Nágera, the businessman Juan Palacios, Pepa the cook, Emiliano Suárez, Eugenia Martínez de Irujo…
There was really not room for a soul in the chapel of the funeral home. Many people had to stay outside and pray from a distance, as it was what you would call packed, and it was a double farewell for a much-loved family. That is why, together with the priests on one side of the altar, Caritina’s coffin and the urn where the ashes of her father Carlos Goyanes rest were placed. For the two of them and for that meeting in the afterlife, all those present prayed. The music of her companions from Emmaus continued to play almost the entire ceremony, which ended with some sweet words from Carla Goyanes’ son, who perfectly read the text that his mother had dedicated to his sister and which exuded love and affection in each phrase. After the religious farewell, the funeral procession headed to the San Isidro cemetery, where the burial of Carlos Goyanes and his daughter Caritina was held. It is still too early for his own family to understand everything that has happened in a summer that only promised good things. Rest in peace.
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