“C‘is it true that daddy closed his eyes forever?’
Every morning, the little boy looks at his father’s photo and asks the same question. Every time he opens his eyes, Emilio thinks of his father’s eyes that he will never see again. And every morning, the heart of Mélanie, her mother, crumbles a little more. “It’s not easy to say to your two and a half year old son: ‘‘Dad is dead’ “, she breathes softly.
She had to do it, put words to the accident that “plunged his life into nothingness, into a black hole” . On October 21, Eddy Buyle, her husband of three years, died in a collision between his motorcycle and a heavy goods vehicle in the Condamine tunnel, in Cantaron. He was 29 years old and “the life before him”cries his sister, Marine. Mélanie caresses his cheek, her fingers follow the path of tears, very delicately.
Their grief is an abyss.
“He was smiling, protective, respectful”
“It was so brutal… We had no news. I had tried to contact him several times, remembers Mélanie, I tried again, tried again: someone answered, it wasn’t him. It was the funeral directors. I recognized the voice: it was a colleague of my husband, who also worked at Funecap in La Trinité. He told me: ”Mel, I wish I never had to say what I’m going to tell you…” “
“They gave him a very dignified funeral. We would like to thank them all, those who were there for him and particularly Patrick Robaut…”smiled Marine. And the tears start to flow again. “Stop, Melanie urges, he wouldn’t have wanted us to collapse. He would have liked to see us get back on track, to see us live.”
They support each other. Both have had his first name tattooed on their forearms… They have it in their skin. Mélanie, his wife and Marine, his sister.
The first tells the companion “always positive, loving, protective and devoted to his friends who reciprocated him: he was very loved”. . The second talks about childhood in Bendejun then in Coaraze: “Eddy was a clown, he loved spinning his notebooks on his finger in class. He was very respectful with the teachers but my mother was often summoned. My parents are devastated…”. And then, she remembers: “He loved cycling, BMX. Two-wheelers were his passion“. She darkens: “One day he said to us: ‘‘If I die on a motorbike, I’ll die happy.'” Between tears, she laughs: “ He was a great dad!”. Melanie agrees: “My last memory of him alive is a kiss to Emilio.”
A pot for the widow
Emilio, the little one, who will have to grow up without dad. love, “family and friends, very numerous, very present”, help them stand.
All that remains is to make ends meet. “It’s very difficult financially,” said Mélanie modestly. Marine helps him: “She only has one salary left, the little one to raise. We have to pay for the funeral, find another apartment”.
“I can no longer live in Bedejun, where the three of us were so happy with my son. Everything reminds me of him. Every piece of furniture, every wall, reminds me of Eddy. It’s too hard. For now, I live with my parents”explains Mélanie, educator for different children in a medical-educational institute (IME).
For now, she survives, on a thread. She’s almost ashamed to talk about money. Marine pushes her: “We opened an online fundraisershe has to get through this, for her, for Emilio and in memory of Eddy. We thank everyone who will participate and relay.”
