These pride-makers who bow out

“The last breath of the dying, the sighs of lovers and the first inspiration of the baby unfortunately originate in the same place, because life and death are two sides of the same coin. So said my mother who, like Guy Lafleur, died of cancer a few months ago. This cursed disease seems to be an arm of choice of the Grim Reaper so much it causes family dramas on the planet. In the case of my mother, it was a huge tumor in her stomach that ended up closing her eyelids. The word tumor has always bothered me, because you can’t help but hear it in two words when cancer shows up in a body. I believe that one day we should find a replacement word for it, less aggressive, less depressing.

As for the word tumor, we should banish from our language this association between fighting and curing cancer which makes us say that such and such another person has overcome cancer. Yes, it is true that the road to recovery can be like a real obstacle course and require a lot of personal investment and energy expenditure. However, by presenting patients as combatants and not as mere victims of natural misfortune, one wrongly identifies winners and losers. However, no offense to the capitalist ideology which idolizes the winners, if having the morale, the will and the good care are important, the outcome of the story of a cancer patient is often much more a natural lottery. than a real fight. Eliminating this association will prevent some people from feeling like losers when they leave this world.

That said, with the death of Guy Lafleur, we can say that cancer has taken away a great winner and another powerful catalyst for Francophone pride.

Also, I want to present here my condolences to his family and to all those who recognized themselves in what he was, well beyond hockey.

You know, even if I fell in love with this nation and I let Quebec blend very closely with my Senegalese culture, it took me a while to understand what Jean Béliveau really represented. , Guy Lafleur, Maurice Richard, etc. These characters were more than hockey players. They embodied catalysts of pride that instilled in French-speaking Quebecers a desire to stand up to the Anglo-Saxon hegemony that had kept them at the bottom of the ladder for too long. In other words, it’s by watching them go on the ice that Francophones have felt this mental revolution rising in them which makes them say: “We are capable of beating them! It is by including their exploits in this revolution that is much more significant than winning a Stanley Cup that we come to understand why the fall of these great oaks leaves so much emptiness and sadness in the population. Hi Guy!