Carte blanche to Dany Turcotte | Let’s keep it dead

With their unique pen and their own sensitivity, artists present to us their vision of the world around us. This week, we give carte blanche to Dany Turcotte.

For everyone’s happiness, November is the month of the dead. Champagne! The older we get, the more the number of our missing grows. Let’s say that all the acquaintances of a centenarian who passed away could easily fill a 47-passenger bus, while “my” deceased could – still – travel comfortably in a Subaru. But death remains, for all living people, a phenomenon that is as difficult to explain as it is to accept.

Once again, last month, a friend received his visit. It obviously ended badly. A few weeks earlier, however, he was radiant. His name was Benoît Léger. A unique energy which splashes everyone with its light brutally slowed down by the so cruel brake with ultimate arm. Talking about him in the past tense is already part of the stages of mourning. He was the type of human to lift everyone up.

Death is a reaper without judgment, I even suspect her of being bipolar, myopic and aiming from the left even though she is right-handed. Benoît was a television producer, the conductor of, among others, The little seduction, which was on the air for 12 years. He had a healthy lifestyle: no coffee, good diet, never smoked, moderate drinker. He simply picked the wrong number in the genetic lottery.

It is difficult to grasp this illogic: people with no appetite for life, who constantly spread negative ideas, who are cantankerous and unhappy, will live to be 100 years old, and Benoîts, who are the complete opposite, are taken from us without explanation. . Injustice with a capital I.

As Benoît was a man of action, I dare to hope that he does not rest too peacefully.

I’m 58 years old and my family of ghosts will probably soon feel cramped in an SUV. I may have to switch to the minibus. My friend and brother Dominique Lévesque also died at age 64. After suffering a heart attack, he drowned in his diving mask, in Honduras, on December 21, 2016. My ex-partner André Gauthier – who had, a few years earlier, an equally absurd accident which had left him quadriplegic – also lost his life, his body completely worn out by his condition. It was December 23, 2016, two days after Dominique. It was a very grim holiday season. It wasn’t just my wine that was sad. The dead don’t suffer, it’s the job of the living to do so.

Earlier in my life, there had already been the death of my father, found in his favorite rocking chair, in his boxers. He was shaved, his coffee was flowing and bam, the reaper had come unannounced. The chair stopped rocking. At least here we can speak of a beautiful death: quick and without suffering. He smoked since the age of 12, he died at 79. His smoke show had therefore lasted 67 years.

I remember making a joke about this to the embalmer, the one we called the undertaker at the time. Since my father had smoked so much, I asked him for a discount on cremation, since half the work was already done!

He didn’t laugh, but knowing my old man, he himself would have laughed for a week.

Black humor is good, it calms down. We’re good at it in the family.

Every day we hear about death, especially in the news, because war is far too fertile ground for it. We give the number of victims a bit like the score in hockey. Death is omnipresent, it lurks, but it remains a subject that we avoid. When it comes to it, we prefer to play dead.

As I have encountered her many times, she is now part of my daily thoughts. But what an absurdity is this concept, somewhere! There is a switch that closes, like a light bulb. One day we are ON and the next day we are OFF.

Religions have invented a whole range of imagery, often childish, to make us accept the absurdity of death. The shock is undoubtedly easier to absorb with these magical thoughts.

Unfortunately, my cynical mind is impervious to these subterfuges. I would like to throw myself sobbing into the comforting arms of the good Lord, but I can’t believe it.

Of course, we can have fun imagining that a loved one who dies is finally “up above”, with all those he has known and who were waiting for him at the gates of heaven, a glass of champagne in hand. An eternal 5 to 7 with the good Lord as bartender, who buys shots when new departed people come to join the old ones.

Life does not give us time to recover from our sorrows, the fire of our mourning is constantly fueled by new disappearances. Perhaps we should wait for our own to finally succeed in forgetting that of others?

My dreams help me a lot. I alternate between each of my ghosts. One night I’m performing with Dominique, the next day I’m fishing with my dad and the next night I’m moving into a new house with André. I dream of spending time with Benoît, but his death is too recent and my brain has not yet completely digested his disappearance.

Let’s take advantage of this month of the dead to address the subject directly. I can testify: talking about it feels good. Whether we like it or not, death is there, very present, impossible to ignore. She is without a doubt the elephant in the room of our lives and our only way to taunt her is to happily bite into each of our days while waiting for our place at the happy hour of eternity!