Anne-Dauphine Julliand is the mother of four children. But she lost three. Through “Add life to days” (Les Arènes, 137 pages, 18 euros), she recounts her life, shattered by tragedies, and the resilience, essential, in the face of the “tsunami” caused by the death of her son Gaspard , who ended his life. It was after this suicide that she decided to write, to talk about her four children and her “commitment” to being their mother. She testifies for HER.
Two deaths from illness then sudden death
“This book is a book that I wish I never had to write. It's a book that I wrote following the death, or rather suicide, of my son Gaspard, two and a half years ago. And Gaspard's death was a tsunami, especially since before that, my two daughters had died.
Motherhood, for me, was not something obvious. I was very impressed with the pregnancy. And then, 25 years ago, I had the chance to meet a man who is the man of my life. Love at first sight like you wouldn't believe. Well, me, in any case, as I didn't believe it. And it came quite naturally with him, actually.
I had the desire, perhaps more than the desire, the confidence to have children. We first had a boy, Gaspard, then Thaïs, Asilis and Arthur. We experienced the death of our two daughters and especially their illness. Well, their life first, and then until their death.
I thought I had reached the pinnacle of suffering. And Gaspard's death completely devastated me. It was something else, it was sudden, brutal, unexpected death. It was the impossible becoming possible. It's hard to live in the moment when you're faced with such great suffering.
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Because everything resonates with this suffering and we don't want to go there. And with that, I know that when the pain is there, if I don't experience it with complete sincerity, it will come back at another time. In my writing process, there is really a desire to share. To share a life experience. Not necessarily to tell my whole life for the pleasure of talking about myself. But just sharing an experience that is both immensely personal, but incredibly universal.
Not universal in the sense that this is what will happen to everyone, but universal because it says so much about life. All these sorrows and these joys mixed together, it's so life. Adding life to the day is living. Live in the moment. It's embodying what we have to experience, both in what is sad and in what is happy.
Taming your pain is the only way to be happy afterwards.
This discovery of this step by step, of adding to each moment of life, allowed me to realize that the only way to be happy when you are tested is to live your pain fully. It’s about giving him space. It’s about taming it, letting it into our lives. Not to scare her away, not to chase her, not to hide her. This sentence is legitimate. Taming it is the only way to be happy afterwards. Whatever happens, spring will return.
It is a perspective that allows us to experience the winter we are in intensely. Just thinking, what's going to happen? And tomorrow? And finally, returning to this tomorrow is also believing in spring. That is to say, our hearts are really in winter.
We are stuck in the ice, but spring will return. Arthur, he is life for us. The fruit of our love is also love.
This book does not make my children more alive, but they are in an eternity
But he is as much as his brothers and sisters. The whole challenge now, perhaps the whole difficulty, is to give Arthur his rightful place without putting the weight of the survivor on him. I can't say that Arthur is everything, because it's too much to be everything to someone.
For him, it is a responsibility that is too overwhelming. He is obviously a bit of the future, because fortunately, I am starting to imagine him growing up again, something I had forbidden myself after Gaspard's death. But yes, I project it into the future today, I project it into that spring, but while telling myself that what we have to experience, we experience it now.
The commitment of Anne-Dauphine Julliand
My children – so when I say my children, I mean Gaspard, Thaïs, Asilis and Arthur – taught me life, in all its grandeur and delicacy, in all that is immense in life. life, and of little ones too. I think they taught me to continue to be amazed.
This book does not make my children more alive, because they are not, alive, but they are in an eternity, which is the eternity of the love I have for them. And if we can feel them alive, if we can sense them, perceive them, when we read a book or when I talk about it, it is because what remains eternally is the love that I I have for them. A parent's commitment to their child's life is not about guaranteeing that they will be happy.
It is not to guarantee him that he will not suffer and that he will live 99 years. You can't tell your child that you will never suffer, but on the other hand you can tell them whatever happens, I will always love you. This is my only commitment. And whether it is for Gaspard, for Thaïs, for Asilis or for Arthur, the commitment that I hold is to always love them. »
