Janette Bertrand | Aging with a capital T

In his new book, A hundred years of love – reflections on old ageJanette Bertrand affirms that growing old can be learned, and that it can be learned young. But how? By the old people themselves. “If you close your eyes when you look at old people, if you don’t take the time with them, talking to them and really listening to them, you won’t learn anything,” she said. There are countries where we honor the elderly and we learn from them, but in our country, an old person is no longer of any use. »

Janette Bertrand knows what she is talking about: in March 2025, she will be 100 years old. The celebrations have already begun for the one that Quebec considers a national treasure. She was on the cover of Elle Quebec In September, a mural in her honor was unveiled at the corner of Ontario and Montgomery Streets, near where she grew up in the East, and a new literary award named after her was created, which will be presented at the next Montreal Book Fair.

The Janette-Bertrand Prize, which aims to “celebrate literary commitment to a more just and egalitarian society,” has as first finalists Léa Clermont-Dion, Martine Delvaux, Claudia Larochelle, Marie-Hélène Larochelle and Élise Turcotte. Janette Bertrand, who is the author of around fifteen books, receives this new honor with humility. “I’m very happy because I’ve never done ‘literature’, that is, spending hours to get my sentence perfect. Literature for me was a means of communication. I wanted to reward people who write with the aim of changing the world, of improving the lot of men and women. »

All this attention around her centenary delights and overwhelms her. “That doesn’t make any sense!” », she exclaims. “Mind you, it makes up a lot for all the years I worked, where I was criticized. I take this as a swing of the pendulum. People hated me and now they love me. »

Pride for the old

But who can hate this great lady? asks a little girl like me, half his age. I had a vague idea of ​​this when I received a nasty email from a gentleman, who called her a “rabid” feminist who wished her dead, just because I had announced her book in the literary season. I’ll spare you the vulgarity of this message, and usually I don’t respond, but this was attacking Janette, and the mustard went up my nose. I couldn’t help but answer: “In almost 100 years, she will have buried some pitiful ones who will leave only a trace in the history of humanity. break. » She has heard and experienced some of the worst in a century, but it makes Janette laugh when I tell her.

Basically, I reacted like my old friend (now gone), the journalist Gérald Leblanc, ex-defrocked priest, who had thundered in front of his television, when young people had sharply criticized Janette Bertrand during the debate on the Charter of values: “WE DON’T TOUCH JANETTE!” » He knew well, he who had grown up in the obscurantism of the Catholic religion, how much it had influenced mentalities and undone many taboos in our society, attracting the wrath of many people in the world. All the same, I am discouraged that at 99 years old, after everything she has done, men still allow themselves to despise her. “They are afraid that their wife will look like me,” she thinks.

After devoting a large part of her life to equality between men and women, Janette Bertrand has a new hobby horse: to restore pride to the old. As usual, she tackles the subject head-on, as well as the taboos of old age, in One hundred years of lovewhere she talks about sexuality, incontinence and erectile dysfunction. Almost ten years after his book Old age by a real old womanshe continues to learn and want to pass on, and we realize that it is an incredible privilege to chat with an (almost) centenarian like that.

And who better than Janette to tell us the truth? No, getting older isn’t easy, it’s an adaptation, and there are some days that are really more difficult than others. For Janette, who is in her right mind, it is more the body that is failing. She apologized for calling a little late because she can’t feel her fingers and often dials the wrong number. Except that, despite some grieving to do, she rejoices every day to be alive, and to be alongside the man she has loved for 41 years. Her tips for aging well are to move, to feel useful, to still be curious, to give and receive love, to be well surrounded. If it takes a village to raise a child, she believes, it also takes a village for an old person to flourish.

Old and happy

Janette harbors no nostalgia. You will never hear him say that it was better before. “Oh no! Hey, lord, it was worse before! I was ashamed of being a girl. I built myself against inequality between men and women. I was sexually assaulted, but all the time, because it was worse before, it was in the morals. And no one believed the women when they said they were being abused. » Not even her father, whom she adored.

She finds that old people who live happily are unfortunately invisible in the media, even though they have so much to give and they too need examples. This is why a few years ago she launched an invitation to elderly people to write their autobiographies – she has since received more than 2,000 manuscripts – and is very involved with the Montreal Geriatrics Institute, which she ardently desires. make known. On the Institute Foundation website, you can read many inspiring testimonies as part of its “Seniors lacking role models” project.

While life expectancy has never been so prolonged, we realize when reading Janette that we are shopping for a sad old age if the fear of growing old grips us too soon. “This book is aimed a lot at young people,” she said. If at 40 you are afraid of getting old, what are you going to do? You’re going to be unhappy for all the years you’ve been given. You won’t benefit from it. With this book, I want to give a little self-esteem to old people. »And the one who has fought sexism all her life seems well equipped to fight ageism. “As long as women have been considered inferior, we have not progressed,” she notes. Since we have made our mark, since we have taken our place, people have started to respect each other. It’s the same thing with old people: you have to start respecting them and seeing each of them as a person. »

I took mental notes while reading One hundred years of lovebecause it is not every day that we can benefit from the experience of such a lucid (soon) centenarian. Because we’re all going to go through this, and Janette, once again, is clearing the way.

In bookstore Tuesday

One Hundred Years of Love – Reflections on Old Age

Janette Bertrand

Libre Expression

167 pages