Patricia is 56 years old and recently discovered a family secret: “I was with my mother and we were visiting my grandmother, who is still lucky enough to be in good shape to live in her house. We had planned to stay two days to spend as much time together as possible, go shopping for her, share good meals. It was just after the Christmas holidays. The first afternoon, a woman came to Elle’s doorbell. asked to see my grandmother I heard her ask her to show her photos of her daughter, therefore my deceased aunt, because she had been her uncle’s great love and she wanted to know more. on her. I was shocked at this request I always knew my aunt as a married woman although quite unhappy in her marriage I had never heard of another man. asked to come back later for the photos, while promising to provide them with them. And she left.”
When the visitor disappears, Patricia asks for explanations: “I had always heard that my aunt, who died when I was young, was a cold, unhappy woman, a little harsh sometimes. I was never close to her. her because of that. It’s as if I had been forbidden to get too close. I was polite but nothing more. I never went to her house on vacation. was little. In my child’s mind, she was a “mean” and I didn’t look any further. As an adult, I pitied my mother and my grandmother for having such a cold person in the family. I could see that she was not close to anyone and for me, she had chosen him. But my grandmother told me another story. A story that had not been told before. of a man in the village and his parents, my grandmother and my grandfather, refused the marriage. They continued to see each other in secret but it ended up being known. My grandfather imposed it. my aunt to marry a man who liked her and who was more in line with her requirements. He worked in the same company as him. I don’t know why my aunt agreed. Maybe it was just a different time and she didn’t even consider running away. In any case, I learned that she had spent her life with a man she didn’t love and with the man she loved only a few miles away.”
Patricia contacts the niece of her aunt’s lover: “She told me the rest of the story. He never married and always told the story of his love to those close to him. That’s when he died that his family members decided to contact my family They wanted to collect photos of my aunt to put one on her grave. I thought it was a nice gesture. knows, she always loved him too. They managed to see each other several times in their lives. Days when she disappeared and when she still ended up returning home. as a child. She didn’t want to be with any man other than the one she loved and she never got pregnant during their reunion. I don’t even know if she was intimate with the man she married. He is in a nursing home now and no one will ever see him except my grandfather, no one has ever loved him in the family. I can’t even imagine what my family would be like if my aunt had been allowed to do what she wanted. And I understand that it was a secret. There is something to be ashamed of. That’s what my grandmother told me, that she was ashamed now. My mother doesn’t want to talk about it. Her sister was older than her and she never talked about it with her. I think everyone has given up on this woman.”
She wants to stay in touch with the family of her aunt’s boyfriend: “We send each other messages from time to time. I dig through my family archives and send them photos. We compare the information we’ve managed to get. We try to piece together the story. I don’t want it to be lost. I never had a relationship with my aunt because of this secret, I’m convinced of it, so I want to make up for lost time as best I can.”
Some families hide secrets that can have consequences for several generations. What are these secrets? How do they resurface? And finally, what are the consequences that this can have on the people who discover them? The series “Family Secrets” returns to this thorny subject of lies and dissimulation within homes.
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