Letter to Catherine Ethier | May you ask and accept their little lasagna

In reaction to Catherine Ethier’s Carte blanche, “A little lasagna” ^⁠1published in the Context section of October 23.

Pierre Duquette
Neurologist

Dear Catherine, I am reacting here to your text of October 23, in The Press. A very nice gift. I allow myself to address you, as you have done elsewhere, for us, your readers. And I’m addressing you directly, rather than the general readership.

I have so many things to tell you, starting with reassuring you: I won’t stick to your coattails, like a groupie who’s a little too infatuated. I know how to be reserved.

Like many others, I discovered you through your columns on Radio-Canada. I read for some time, several years ago, the magazine Urbania, but I don’t remember reading you there. Then, lately, browsing the Web, I found videos of you, in particular the one on “Benevolence in social networks”, a video that I recommend to those who would like to know you better. She represents you well. Finally, I have just finished your brand new book on The Extraordinary Woman, which well deserves the enthusiasm with which it was received. I believe that we have not finished being surprised by what you bring us. As for your photo which adjoins your letter, I recently said of the photo of a loved one: “Kindness cannot be pretended. » For yours : « Authenticity cannot be faked. »

I don’t know if it pleases you, or if it bothers you, that I tell you, as everyone does, that you are so funny, of course, but also authentic, refreshing, endearing, touching, etc. At any event, I add my voice to this concert of praise; you will do with it as you wish, but you deserve all this. I would add that I adore your facial expressions, your pouts, your gestures, which your voice alone on the radio could suggest.

When a new voice, another vision of our reality, appears like that, unexpectedly, on the public stage, it’s like a revelation.

And, as far as you are concerned, your happy amalgamation of humor, moods, frivolities, truths enriches us all.

I have European friends to whom I talk about you, while explaining to them that you have to have lived in Montreal for at least 10 years before you can grasp the full scope of your content, even if the themes covered are those of many people’s daily lives.

I come, it is time, to your letter. In my work, I have to help people to live with an incurable chronic disease. And the encounters sometimes overflow from the biological towards the more personal, towards the lived experience, towards what it is like to be afflicted in this way with an evil that will never cease. And there is revolt, and there is distress, and there are successive losses, and there is, sometimes, a desire to end it. It is through this that I have contact with distresses like those which overwhelm you. I also knew colleagues who couldn’t make it, few in number, but too often. Likewise, a very, very close person has been there. It would have been unbearable, heartrending, boring pain.

Through these various experiences, I come to think that there are people who seek, who call death and who often achieve their ends, their end.

The evil of living prevails over everything, carries them away. I don’t feel that in you, I don’t feel that inevitability/irreducibility. Admittedly, the idea of ​​death invades you and incarcerates you, but, how to say, you undergo it more than you seek it, it is the intruder that you would like to get rid of. And that reassures me about the risk of a possible fatality.

Of course, don’t worry, I won’t tell you that it will pass, that it doesn’t matter. Smoke a joint, talk to a friend, get dizzy or, to quote you again, go fuck someone. The solution is not there. We know it well. The pain must be said, recognized and heard. But the little lasagna might help; it’s like saying: I’m here, just in case. We are used to switches that bring light, darkness then becoming the absence of light. One could ingeniously tinker with an inverted switch that would actively switch from dark to light.

Rather, I’m telling you that you do us a lot of good, that you calm us down, by mixing, as you do so well, laughter and pain. We can’t wait to hear from you again, to receive your kindness, your spontaneity. We stop everything, to hear you well; you talk fast. I don’t want to burden you, in addition to the rest, with the well-being of the community. But know that a lot of people would be sorry if you weren’t here anymore. Things have been going so badly in the world, since long before the pandemic, that we have to force ourselves to find reasons to rejoice, not to despair. I will not enumerate all these afflictions; we would never end. But you, Catherine, you’re there, your voice helps us keep our heads above water, comforts us, makes us smile, tells us not to let go.

I have no doubt that you are surrounded by many people who would like nothing more than to help you. May you ask and accept their little lasagna.