“When Brigitte had cancer, I think I became a man,” Ricardo Larrivee confides to his great friend, Marie-Claude Barrette, in the most recent episode of the podcast Open your game.
It wasn’t when he became a father that the chef everyone knows by his first name said he changed and aged. But rather when his wife, Brigitte, was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago.
Facing death
“Because there, suddenly, I could lose what I loved most,” breathes the one who is not afraid to say that he has a traditional vision of the role of the man who must take care of his wife and protect his family.
“But you can’t do anything about cancer,” he adds. What’s more, cancer can come back and has a 50% chance of being transmitted to his three daughters.
The famous chef then began to make lists, some of which told his loved ones everything they should do if he died.
All this while his own mother was simultaneously battling incurable pancreatic cancer under her roof. Because the son wanted to watch over his mother until the end of her life and to educate his daughters on the importance of recognizing where we come from.
“I owe everything to women. I had male figures, but all the passing of knowledge was done by the women in my life,” he explains. Ricardo also counts sister Angèle – who gave him his first chance on television and played matchmaker between him and his wife – in this important female circle.
Happy to be growing old
Raised by a verbally abusive father who died at 56 – exactly the age he is today – Ricardo Larrivee explains that he was inspired by this relationship in a positive way, knowing what mistakes not to repeat with his own family.
“My goal and greatest wish in life was to love a woman in a big way, and it happened. Tomorrow, anything can happen, it will never go away. If I die tomorrow, I can’t say there’s anything I regret. I have been loved, I have loved and I have known the happiness of sincere friendships,” he adds.
Moved to tears at the memory of the wedding of his daughter, Béatrice, last summer, the proud father says he has become much more sensitive to the joy and sadness of others over the years.
He believes he has achieved everything he wanted to do in his life and sees the rest of his existence as “a perpetual bonus” of what can happen to him.
“I’m happy to get old, but I think it’s a good thing to die. I wouldn’t want to live forever, I would just put everything off until tomorrow. I want to live, love, enjoy. Death is important – not too soon – but at some point, it’s time to let go. This forces me to be rigorous in my happiness,” he adds.