Didier Eribon's poignant narrative explores the life and death of his mother, who endured constant unhappiness and ultimately faced decline in a nursing home. Following a challenging life marked by poverty and a toxic marriage, she was placed in a state-run facility where her health rapidly deteriorated. Eribon rejects the notion of 'unconscious suicide'; instead, he posits her death was a conscious choice, spurred by a sense of hopelessness. Despite moments of joy, such as a brief romance, her eventual isolation led her to fantasy, illustrating the profound impacts of aging and neglect in such institutions.
Eribon contests the idea that his mother's death was what was called unconscious suicide. For him it was willed. She could herself see this diminishment and she surely knew that it was irreversible.
The admitting doctor had warned Eribon that for new arrivals there was a high risk that, uprooted and alienated, they would quickly die.
In widowed dotage, she took a lover called Andre. But Andre ended the affair because, perhaps understandably, he could not handle her evident decline.
She took respite in mad fantasy. I don't remember if I told you that I'm expecting a baby, she tells Eribon one day.
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