The fiancé of one of the five Italian divers who died in an underwater cave in the Maldives declared his everlasting love for her in a heartbreaking note read at a memorial service.
Bartender Federico Colombo, 26, gushed over Giorgia Sommacal, 22, who died alongside her mom, Monica Montefalcone, when they got trapped in a 200-foot-deep, shark-infested cave last week, La Repubblica reported.
“The loss of Giorgia and Monica taught me something I perhaps couldn’t truly understand before: nothing in life can be taken for granted,” he wrote in the love note read to mourners Saturday at a service in the St. Francis of Assisi Church in their hometown, Genoa.
“I learned that we need to be more grateful for the present, because it’s the only thing we truly have.
“We should have the courage to love more, to say what we feel, to hug the people we love tightly, and to savor every moment, even the ones that seem trivial or silly.
“Because often, it’s those very moments that become the most precious memories.”
Colombo eerily wrote about how “Life moves so quickly and never warns us when something is about to end.”
“Let’s hurry to love. We always love too little, too late,” he wrote.
“Giorgia and Monica are our happiness. I love you and will carry you in my heart forever.”
Colombo told ANSA last week that Sommacal “loved diving more than anything else” and her eyes “lit up” when the conversation turned to the sea.
“It was a passion that was deeply rooted in her, something she was born for and truly gifted for,” he said.
“In the water, she seemed to feel free, in her natural element.”
Sommacal’s body is one of two that have yet to be recovered. The team of experts hope to recover her and Muriel Oddenino, 31, in renewed efforts Wednesday.
The bodies were found inside the cave’s third segment – which officials say is the largest part — and the divers dealt with “obstructed spaces, darkness, and the possibility of poor visibility,” as they reached the sets of human remains, Laura Marroni, the founder of DAN, told Rainews24.
The bodies will be repatriated back to Italy for autopsies — and Italian prosecutors have launched a culpable homicide probe into the tourists’ deaths.
As part of the investigation, the other Italian tourists who the quintet were with on the Duke of York boat will be quizzed.
