Philippe could have spent the end of his old age in Greece. Aging with sea, love and olive oil, why not. The life decided otherwise. Hélène had a stroke seven years ago. “Sixty-five years together, I was not going to let go. » Nope, Philippe, he didn’t let her go, Hélène.
The clot had lodged in the hypothalamus. Going all the way to remove it was too dangerous during the operation. For seven years, Hélène has therefore been lying in a bed, or else sitting in a wheelchair. Half of his body is paralyzed. Dependent on the help around her, she has lost her autonomy. What she has in mind, she cannot put into words.
” This is not a life. Compared to everything we’ve seen and experienced, it’s a pretty disastrous ending.” concedes Philippe, who met Hélène in Algiers in 1954, before marrying her in Avon (Seine-et-Marne) in 1958. “My life having been made by her side, I have made it my mission to help her as much as possible so that she has a life that is more or less bearable, until the end of one of us. What I would like is for her to leave before me, because if I left, there would be no one to take care of her. »
Five days a week, Philippe, 89, walks the same path, in one direction then in the other, to pick up Hélène, 92, at the nursing home which is, by chance, at the end of their street. , in Chatou (Yvelines), in the western suburbs of Paris. “Have you ever been to an Ehpad? The least we can do is not go. Or go there at the last minute. » If he put her there in 2016, it’s because with his eighty-two years of age, he couldn’t get her from bed to chair. “A body that does not react weighs an incredible weight. » He sold their vacation home in Roscoff (Finistère), collected money for pay his wife’s new place of life, and chose this one rather than another. This one, very close to the house they lived in for more than thirty years.
“What is an Ehpad?
– It is an establishment in which people who can no longer live at home find refuge. That’s it, theoretically. And practically, it’s still a bit like that. You can find everything there. The one my wife is in is in the not too bad category. But it is often a refuge whose door can only be crossed in one direction. »
Philippe arrives at 2 p.m., after Hélène’s lunch in the large communal hall. She is waiting for him. She knows he’s coming. “It may be pretentious to say it, but when she sees me coming, her face lights up. » Sixty-five years of living together means that by the look, Philippe understands Hélène. If she feels good, if she’s tired. And if Hélène can’t say or give, she loves him with her eyes. Philip knows it. He feels it. Always.
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