Dear Karl, I can finally say Karl and let go of the unofficial Monsieur Tremblay, because the therapeutic relationship between us is now over.
I had the odiousness, almost four years ago, to announce the diagnosis to you. I, who had wished for an operable illness to dream of hope, only had news of the worst of the bad: a solid, metastatic cancer. An entry into a nightmarish world with no possible exit. At most a few years that we would try to stretch as long as possible. And for that, I knew I had to send you to be treated by the best.
And these experts gave everything that science has that is most corrosive and most powerful in order to slow down the invader that nothing seemed to frighten. Line after protocol, you have undergone treatments in the hands of these caregivers, all committed to helping this young and brave father that you are. And you face everything without flinching, solid as a rock.
When Marie-Annick wrote to me last summer to tell me that your doctors were on vacation and that you were suffering, I told myself that I would try as best I could to relieve and support. But I must admit that through the figures from the analyzes of your blood and the densities of the images on the screens, I could only dread what was going to follow. Conversely, you seemed in better shape than ever, ten years younger with eyes sparkling with life and energy to spare. And there was no question of stopping the Cowboys’ momentum; the tsunami of love had been triggered and nothing would stop you from getting back on stage.
A good researcher could find that the prophet Pauzé had written the song many years before your diagnosis Heads up and even Down here. But we will not be surprised when we know that this same prophet Pauzé, our fleurdelized Nostradamus, had written about pandemics and devastating fires more than 20 years before their fangs sprouted and invaded our daily lives (8 seconds, Nothing).
But what no one will ever find in the journalistic archives is that you sang The head high And Down here for more than two years knowing your diagnosis while the audience applauding you knew nothing about it. That you sang anemic, suffering, negotiating the best timing for your treatments in order to prioritize your show schedule and respect your audience. What no one will know is that you have suffered the horrors of what modern medicine can bring, disfiguring side effects and the most bizarre complications. And always your unfailing smile to face all these insults, and this hope of getting back on stage, again and again.
Simone and Pauline must know how courageous their dad is, how he accepted biopsies, radiotherapy and chemotherapy without complaining simply to be there longer and see them grow. And I can testify to having seen you in treatment the day before and the day after big shows, receiving a transfusion a few hours before a show. No matter how much I told myself that it didn’t make sense, the critics were always there to make me lie, with each one more rave than the last. Yes, the stage helped you as much, if not more, than all the oncolytic medicine. And none of the prescribed gimmicks could beat a round of loud applause.
Until these last days, when the pain like a brand insinuated itself into the marrow of your bones, relentlessly hitting you with its vicious scents to make even the touch of a caress unbearable. You insisted on staying home with your daughters until the end, but the pain brought you to your knees, beyond the limits of what a body can endure.
And then things spiral out of control and your body decides it doesn’t want it anymore, even though your head still wants it. And we who run behind to try to catch up with you, but you are already moving away and I look at you, helpless, demolished, witness to the limits of what science can against these ignoble cancers.
And may I never hear anyone say that you will have lost your battle or finished your fight; cancer is not part of any form of fair war. And then if there is someone who loses here it will be her, the illness, the one who, by stealing a few decades from you, will suffocate in her own breath. And then we, who lose a monument, a voice, an anchor.
But not you. You won’t have lost anything. You will have been a dashing person to the end, an upright and proud troubadour. As your father told me, you will always have kept your head held high.