Four policemen in Rome responded to an urgent call of a neighborhood resident who had heard human screams and wails, only to find a weeping elderly couple.
To their surprise, the police found 84-year-old Jole and her 94-year-old husband, Michele, who were suffering from a chronic and incurable kind of depression, according to Italian news site La Repubblica.
The couple, who were married for nearly seven decades, were found to have never had any visitors for a long time as their neighbors had moved out of the city. In the police’s Facebook post, they described the couple’s kitchen table as empty, with only a few old grapes.
“There is not a crime. Jole and Michele are not victims of scams and no thief entered the house—there is no one to save,” the police wrote in Italian as translated by New York Daily News on their Facebook page Questura di Roma.
After they called an ambulance to check on the couple, the four policemen—Andrew, Alexander, Ernesto and Mirko—thought of serving them a hearty meal of spaghetti, butter and Parmesan cheese. While the couple ate the spaghetti, the gentlemen chatted with them to brighten up their gloomy spirits.
“Improvise a little dinner. A Bowl of pasta with butter and cheese. Nothing special. But a precious ingredient is there inside, which is their humanity,” the post said. Gianna Francesca Catolico