Italy's coronavirus lockdown keeps Freeport native from sister's funeral

A Freeport native living in Italy missed his sister’s funeral Wednesday because of the country’s lockdown to contain the coronavirus.

The Italian government imposed a national quarantine Monday, restricting travel across the country’s borders and movement within.

Ron Canterna, 73, said he is trapped in Venice for the foreseeable future.

“All I can say is I’m sad,” Canterna said about missing the funeral for his sister, Linda Manzari. “I think I’ll know exactly how I feel when I get back there, to see her grave.

“I just don’t know how to deal with it.”

Manzari, 81, died Monday, March 2, after five years of battling metastatic breast cancer. Her funeral was Wednesday in Freeport.

Being trapped abroad, unable to be there with his family during a time of grieving, is stifling, Canterna said. It’s made it difficult to really process her death.

Everything feels so surreal, he said.

A former professor at the University of Wyoming, Canterna moved to Venice in retirement with his wife, Paola, an Italian native. Canterna could leave Italy to return to the U.S., but he knows if he does, he’ll have to undergo two weeks of quarantine.

Plus, he feels doing so would just put more people at risk of infection.

Hunkering down in Venice

So Canterna and his wife are “hunkering down.” They’re conducting the majority of their work online. He still teaches online courses for the University of Wyoming, and she is a therapist, now doing sessions via video chat. They’re streaming movies. They go for walks sometimes, but they’re always back inside by the country’s 6 p.m. curfew.

“I hope no one has to go through this,” Canterna said.

Canterna and his wife can’t even see their kids, who had planned to visit this month for a birthday.

The change in their surroundings brought on by the quarantine is spooky, Canterna said.

He normally enjoys the quiet in Venice, connected by canals and footpaths, where there’s no noise from motor vehicles. He’s grown accustomed to the tourism, as well as the frequent first-class concerts, ballets, movies and international exhibitions.

But now, he said, it’s like a ghost town.

There are no tourists walking the streets. Almost all of the hotels have closed.

“It’s kind of eerie,” Canterna said. “You walk outside and there is just no one there.”

He and his wife still venture outside to take walks and to do any necessary shopping, he said, but there is an “ever-present” fear of infection. He always carries a cloth or something to cover his mouth and nose, and he said he washes his hands between 30 and 40 times a day.

He sees the fear in his fellow residents, too. At the cafes, still open during the day, he’s noticed customers sitting farther apart from one another. Certain shops and stores won’t allow more than three or four customers at a time to prevent crowding.

For the most part, he said he’s been impressed by the respect and cooperation of his neighbors, taking all the necessary precautions to prevent the virus from spreading.

But then again, he said, it’s only been a few days.

“It’s like being in a war zone,” Canterna said. “You are still alive. You don’t see the effects, but you know the enemy is out there and you can get destroyed.”