The last 4 months or so I spent in a little village called Barraux, a little bit up the mountain next to the town where my scool was. My host parents were called Anne and Hervé, and they had three children; David and Thomas, both living away from home, and Alice, who was on exchange in Argentina. The parents were really nice, and we got along well. I was very close with Anne in particular, and used to spend a lot of time with her, often just sitting in the kitchen talking to her when she was doing something there.
A year or so before my exchange, Anne had had cancer. When I moved in with them she was fine; she was working as a midwife, had taken up a new hobby which she enjoyed, and was leading quite a normal life, except for the occasional medical check ups.
That spring, however, her cancer came back. She had chemo, lost all her hair, and was very tired a lot of the time. They asked me if I wanted to move, because it wouldn't be all that great staying with them when she was so sick, but I preferred staying, since the only other possible family was nowhere near as nice as them, cancer or no cancer. Anne didn't get into a very bad state while I was there, although it was clear that she wasn't well.
I left France at the end of June. Some months later, I found out that Anne was cancer-free again, which was a relief. A year after leaving, I went back to visit them before taking up my summer job in Disneyland Paris. Right before my visit, Anne had found out that there was something wrong with her test results. The cancer was back, it seemed.
After that visit, I didn't see Anne and Hervé for 2½ years. I sent them cards occasionally, and got a couple of e-mails during 2008, but our contact was quite infrequent. I called them on Christmas Day in 2009 when I was in Perth, and found out that Anne still had cancer, but was doing reasonably well, all things considered.
Last fall, when I was doing my Erasmus exchange in London, some friends of mine told me they'd found really cheap plane tickets to Glasgow. I really wanted to visit Scotland again, so I looked into it, but also found out that in the winter EasyJet does direct flights to Grenoble, which is close to where I was on exchange. I realised how long it had been since my last visit, so I called up my first host mum, as well as Anne, to ask them if they were free around the time I planned to visit. Anne told me she was quite ill, and to call again the week before my trip to see if she would be able to see me. Apparently in the summer she had been in such bad shape that they thought she would die, but she had pulled through it once more.
A few weeks before Christmas I flew to Grenoble, and I spent the first night at Anne and Hervés house. Anne looked awful; she had lost a lot of weight, and her skin had a strange, greyish colour. All the same, I was really happy to see her.
Today when I got home, I had a message on Facebook from Hervé, telling me that Anne died on 10 February. "The cancer was stronger than her," he wrote. It shouldn't be a shock, seeing as she was barely holding on when I saw her, but I hadn't been expecting it - I guess somehow I thought she would get through it, just like before.
It's hard to believe she's no longer there. We didn't talk or write very often after my exchange, but while I was living with them we were close. I remember how she cried the day I left. I'm really glad I decided to pay them that last visit in December, although I didn't know it at the time, of course. At least I don't have any regrets in that respect.
Anne, je t'oublierai jamais, et tu me manques!
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| Anne and I on the day I left |
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