“When my wife died, my need was to live in the utility, in order to feel protected and able to surround Melvil as well as possible. My grief was endless but I had to take care of our child. Often times, I wanted to wrap it in bubble wrap and slip it into a drawer so that nothing happens to it, but I forced myself to do it right, sometimes sending it to its risks or its risks. responsibilities of a little man. In fact, I wanted to be a perfect father, ten out of ten every day. Besides, I even set up a rating system. I was withdrawing from points if Melvil hadn’t had time to have his breakfast sitting at the table because I hadn’t been specific enough about the wake-up time. I took away points if I stuck a chocolate cake in his mouth instead of a slice of fresh bread, I sanctioned myself at the end of the day, recapitulating each failure, always aiming for better for the next day.
The fear of not doing enough for my son, or without putting enough heart into it, was intolerable to me. Did I play in the park with enough enthusiasm? Had I read a story while being present? Had I cuddled him intensely enough? He no longer had a mother, I had to be both, but as I could only be a father, I absolutely had to be. A mechanical challenge, a total pressure, so that the emotion never comes to hinder my reconstruction. An outcome that I did not even think about. Above all, my mourning should not drag me down because I knew that the precipice would have no bottom. So I rose up, like the arm of a machine tool, with force and mechanically, carrying my little boy at the end of my mobile clamp. Sometimes blinded by this mechanism, I failed. It happened to me not to see that he had a fever, not to feel that he was in pain, to get irritated, to panic in front of his “no”. Wanting too much to be perfect, I forgot to be human. My anger was sometimes too intense.
And then, one very specific day, I think things changed. I walked backwards to the theatrical performance of my first book. I did it in secret, embarrassed that I could be recognized in the room. I was terrified to be there but ready to face my character. However, when the actor who entered the scene said the text, I only saw one character, someone very fair, of course, but very distant from me. So I was able to leave him in the room when I left, to abandon him to his theater, to his rehearsal, telling every evening a story that no longer belonged to me and that I have the feeling that I have stolen from Hélène a little. also, exposing it by my story for all to see. I told my first steps as a dad all alone, the anecdote of the mothers at the nursery making mash and compotes for my son, or even a word from this neighbor on the landing that I did not know, offering to help me with Melvil if necessary … All of these things seemed far away. I had overcome them.
As there was a before and after the death of Helena, there was a before and after this evening at the theater. Being a good dad continued to be my motivation, but not in the same way. I put my energy into it but I put another soul in it, closer to mine this time. I admitted that I could be a normal daddy, be wrong, change my mind.
Little by little, I felt that I could fully relive emotions, like the day I took Melvil for ice cream in the park where her mother and I met.
I didn’t have to sort this memory to put it in the dumpster, as I had to do with some of Helene’s things. He didn’t have that unbearable taste of the previous months. I was finally able to turn peacefully to memory. So I wanted to show my son that before being a “perfect daddy”, I too was a child, a child who goes to school, who plays, who falls, but also a child. child who has parents who tear themselves apart, and a mother who dies too soon… I took Melvil to the places of my childhood. Our complicity only became greater. I understand his laughs and I understand his silences. Mine are so close to his.
A few years after Hélène’s death, I met a woman with whom I thought possible to relocate. I failed to open the circle that Melvil and I now form, an inseparable whole. It’s hard to make room for someone. Yet the joy returned. Hélène is not a taboo name. She is no longer that ghost that haunted our house. She now populates her, she is with us. ”
Extracts from Antoine Leiris’ book “La vie, après” éd. Robert Laffont.