Translated excerpts from Louis Tremblay – Une Vie Normale – A Normal Life
It is enough to sit at the keyboard of a computer, to open a channel and wait for inspiration to fall from the sky, to write a manuscript in a little while, for the editor.
There is a sensation of mental disassociation that a person feels when he is confronted by a difficult situation.
I close my eyes.
I see you.
I open them again.
You are gone. It’s always like that.
My memory transforms itself into a time machine and you come back to life.
Then I can kiss you again, see you again, take you in my arms, and tell you that I missed you.
It is always a paradox. I cannot deal with your absence without your memories. And these memories can only awaken the pain of your absence.
Why should a mother not have the right to weep for the loss of her child in public without having to justify herself or be considered hysterical?
I close my eyes. You are there.
I don’t want to open them again.
You know, rainy days are also like regular days. God does not differentiate.
There is a vast gap between our wonderful principles and our behavior.
They said I did not shed a single tear. They called me courageous. I don’t know.
I wasn’t there.
Besides, why should I cry?
What happened?
I don’t remember identifying him.
I did not see the coffin cover you, like we close the cover of a book once finished.
I floated. I was unreal, the situation was unreal. I even smiled.
We have just left life behind us, but death hasn’t struck yet. The feeling of emptiness, resignation, is strong and I imagine it must be the same for people waiting in the corridor of death.
Time advances like the flow of water. It does not pass judgment on happenings.
It does not delay our misfortune and does not rejoice at our good fortune. It has no compassion for us. It does not stop for us. It goes its way without paying heed to the pebbles strewn on the path. Nothing matters to time and he drags us with him.
I could not accept that life restarted in the days that followed your death.
I could not accept that in just a few days time, people went about their habitual occupation, that the rain fell, that the sun rose and set, that everything was like before for everyone but for us.
To lose a child (any dear one) is a wound in the heart and soul, a thorn gone deep down your insides that no doctor can see. We suffer. We become the suffering.
The worst is that it does not improve. The pain stays intact in spite of the tenacity of the days that go by and come back. The pain does not wear out; its surface remains open as it did on the first day. My pain took up all room; I licked my wounds in a corner like a wounded animal. Nothing else seemed important.
Sooner or later, one has to choose to come back to the world of the living. Life continues and pitying yourself and your fate is of no use. I regret all that happened but one can do nothing.
I shed so many tears without emptying this abscess that stayed swollen and painful till it closed and imprisoned all the pus inside it.
I counted on time to settle matters but I came to the conclusion that certain things demand that we take care of them before time does. It was as though I had lived a single and very long day.
Behind this door were the physical remains of your passage on earth. Crossing that door seemed like disturbing a scared place.
Seeing your room, emptying your things was like deleting you like you had never existed.
I took your clothes and held them close to my face. I could smell you.
Who can claim to have mastered his destiny from the beginning to the end?
Others are none other than me.
You killed a part of me.
I got back in touch with the music of life, its smells, its sounds, its noise and its lights.
I realized that from now on and for life, I would miss a limb, an organ, a vital part of myself. You had died. This organ, limb, life was no more, but I had to learn to live with this, or rather without it.
I chose people who could listen to me.
Now I had to relearn to smile.
Life remains as unseizable as the flow of water.
I close me eyes.
You are there.
I open them again.
It is enough to sit at the keyboard of a computer, to open a channel and wait for inspiration to fall from the sky, to write a manuscript in a little while, for the editor.
There is a sensation of mental disassociation that a person feels when he is confronted by a difficult situation.
I close my eyes.
I see you.
I open them again.
You are gone. It’s always like that.
My memory transforms itself into a time machine and you come back to life.
Then I can kiss you again, see you again, take you in my arms, and tell you that I missed you.
It is always a paradox. I cannot deal with your absence without your memories. And these memories can only awaken the pain of your absence.
Why should a mother not have the right to weep for the loss of her child in public without having to justify herself or be considered hysterical?
I close my eyes. You are there.
I don’t want to open them again.
You know, rainy days are also like regular days. God does not differentiate.
There is a vast gap between our wonderful principles and our behavior.
They said I did not shed a single tear. They called me courageous. I don’t know.
I wasn’t there.
Besides, why should I cry?
What happened?
I don’t remember identifying him.
I did not see the coffin cover you, like we close the cover of a book once finished.
I floated. I was unreal, the situation was unreal. I even smiled.
We have just left life behind us, but death hasn’t struck yet. The feeling of emptiness, resignation, is strong and I imagine it must be the same for people waiting in the corridor of death.
Time advances like the flow of water. It does not pass judgment on happenings.
It does not delay our misfortune and does not rejoice at our good fortune. It has no compassion for us. It does not stop for us. It goes its way without paying heed to the pebbles strewn on the path. Nothing matters to time and he drags us with him.
I could not accept that life restarted in the days that followed your death.
I could not accept that in just a few days time, people went about their habitual occupation, that the rain fell, that the sun rose and set, that everything was like before for everyone but for us.
To lose a child (any dear one) is a wound in the heart and soul, a thorn gone deep down your insides that no doctor can see. We suffer. We become the suffering.
The worst is that it does not improve. The pain stays intact in spite of the tenacity of the days that go by and come back. The pain does not wear out; its surface remains open as it did on the first day. My pain took up all room; I licked my wounds in a corner like a wounded animal. Nothing else seemed important.
Sooner or later, one has to choose to come back to the world of the living. Life continues and pitying yourself and your fate is of no use. I regret all that happened but one can do nothing.
I shed so many tears without emptying this abscess that stayed swollen and painful till it closed and imprisoned all the pus inside it.
I counted on time to settle matters but I came to the conclusion that certain things demand that we take care of them before time does. It was as though I had lived a single and very long day.
Behind this door were the physical remains of your passage on earth. Crossing that door seemed like disturbing a scared place.
Seeing your room, emptying your things was like deleting you like you had never existed.
I took your clothes and held them close to my face. I could smell you.
Who can claim to have mastered his destiny from the beginning to the end?
Others are none other than me.
You killed a part of me.
I got back in touch with the music of life, its smells, its sounds, its noise and its lights.
I realized that from now on and for life, I would miss a limb, an organ, a vital part of myself. You had died. This organ, limb, life was no more, but I had to learn to live with this, or rather without it.
I chose people who could listen to me.
Now I had to relearn to smile.
Life remains as unseizable as the flow of water.
I close me eyes.
You are there.
I open them again.
