It is a testimony but also an essay which summons sociology, history, psychology and even ethnology. In his first book, “Death period: how I tamed death” (ed Équateurs, 2024), Stéphane Durand dissects the bereavements that have marked his life and his journey which even led him to train as a counselor funeral, to read and question all those who have worked on death.
Your book opens with the death of your older brother and that of your father, how have these bereavements transformed you?
They were very different to live with. The first, I was thirteen, my brother died in a car accident. A brutal death, which takes you by surprise, at an age when I was in the process of constructing my being. I lost my father when I was 21 to cancer. A death “prepared” by a passage into palliative care. In the end, both hit me just as hard. The shock of death, whatever it may be, carries the same intensity.
You explain that these two bereavements caught up with you years later. What happened?
Yes, I didn't realize that the fact of having been somewhat alone in experiencing this mourning without psychological help had damaged my foundations. I was emotionally fragile. In my romantic relationships, for example, there was always something wrong. I felt a lot of anger. Twenty years almost to the day after my brother's death, I experienced a breakup. It was during the 2018 World Cup and my brother died during the 1998 World Cup. I found myself on the ground, seeing all of France completely euphoric. Exactly like what I experienced at 13, when all the people were singing “we are the champions, we are the champions” while my brother had just died. This is where I really hit everything like a boomerang in the face and it led me straight towards a deep depression.
In your book, you ask that we use the word “bereaved” more, why?
This word allows us to bring death into our daily lives. As a bereaved person, we may experience anxiety and fits of anger. It would allow us to relax a little and say to ourselves that yes, during bereavement, it's normal not to be well.
