Fidelity

                                                                Inkt drawing by Amarie

It's a hollow idea, a blind human vanity, as if one possessed something, as if one believed oneself to be immortal, as if one were. Everything is vanity, nothing but vanity, said Bossuet.

Now, while writing my family's story, I realized how much I had come to love them. A great love that is usually reserved only for one's own family: my daughters, my son, my husband, and my grandchildren. Long before, I knew that when I held them in my arms, this fervor would fade away. This filial love gradually faded starting from my sister's marriage, more brutally with my brother's, and completely disappeared with the death of my parents. Thus, I fortuitously came to know the cruelty of denial and the family's everlasting disdain from the moment my brother became engaged to his beloved. Despite the overwhelming adulation of his mother, the unconditional love of his sisters, and his father's demonstration of attachment by preparing boxes of non-perishable food every month with clockwork regularity. We will never see them again; we will know nothing more about them; we will never share any celebrations or feelings; we will no longer learn about any family events, whether happy, sad, or joyful. I felt a deep sorrow, especially at the thought of knowing what strong lie they managed to invent to quell any desire to meet us, to know us, and to deprive their children of the affection we could have shown them. Were we to be cursed to that extent, and for what reason?

Father, adored by so many, died ignored, abandoned, and forsaken by his own son. My sadness and my tears were of no use, not even to soothe me.

As for my children, since they were little, I know that this warmth will abandon me, that these bodies I caress with so much maternal love, I know they will leave; I have known this fear from the beginning. With friends, I know this absence nestled in the most tender arms, this solitude where you are left even if you are loved, where you end up being left, even if you come back, this solitude and this regret that are sometimes shared. Of course, that's life; loyalty crumbles and melts like snow in the sun. What a gamble to believe it is stronger than time! Moreover, do we ask a child to remain faithful to their mother because they lived in her womb? Do we demand from them eternally this recognition, stupid and vain: the recognition of the womb? Go, my little ones, go without remorse; I know you love me; why would I add the bonds of blood and skin to the thousand genetic chains that already bind us?

The bond between the children and me is my husband. As children, I watched them seize the paternal body, assault it, climb onto its back, throw themselves around its neck and into its arms, shouting with joy. The charmed father lets them do as they please; he offers himself everything. They pull his ears, stick their fingers in his nostrils, jump on his belly, pummel him with little punches; the father is a conquered territory. Every time the mother watches her children's game, she loves her husband. You must understand, couples, despite themselves, stay together for the children. You shouldn't be jaded; it's a perpetual surprise, a marvel that a man made possible. Making love, having a child, isn't that more than enough to justify the bonds of marriage, to keep them tight? Here lies the immense power of progeny, beyond fidelity, to strengthen family bonds. The discovery-hungry adolescents will gradually free themselves from the bonds as they embark on the winding paths of their own lives, only to return on their steps with graying temples.

This is an extract of my book "Quatre Siècles" by my pseudonym, Elisa Grindale edited by Baudelaire