Catherine Laborde, ex Mrs. Météo de TF1, died

“The disease does not take away the right to be happy”

(Interview published on November 15, 2018) For the past twenty-eight years, she presented the weather on TF1. Today, Catherine Laborde is sick. She talks about it in a book where the joy of life prevails over sorrow.
Collected by Marie-Valentine Chaudon

With Tremblepublished on October 11, the public discovered that you suffer from a neurodegenerative disease. Why reveal it now?

I think it was the right time. At the end of 2014, the doctor who made the diagnosis of Parkinson advised me not to talk about it. He was right, I needed to remain active. I continued to present the weather for two years with this disease which, at the beginning, was not seen. When I understood that it was no longer possible, I decided to stop, on January 1, 2017, without giving reason. Despite the drugs and my habit of holding my right hand, which trembles, with the left, I saw that the disease was gaining ground and that I should no longer hide. I also knew that by revealing it, I was going to officially leave the camp of the well-portables for that of the suffers. This new relationship with the outside world, destabilizing, also brings me relief. I no longer have to feel embarrassed by these transformations – the words that do not always come in the right order, my slowness, my fatigue, etc.

You describe these manifestations in your body with great precision: tremors, pain, benchmarks, etc. Why make us enter the intimacy of symptoms?

I did not ask myself the question of modesty. I didn’t want a barrier between the reader and me. I had to precisely describe the truth of my experience. This work allowed me to see more clearly, to know my enemy well to better fight it. Symptoms are special to everyone. There are as many ways to live the disease as there are patients. It is a terribly personal path, that we face alone even if we are well surrounded, as in my case. By revealing my intimacy, I hope to console other patients as I need to be consoled with this thing that takes my life. I would also like to tell them that the disease does not take away the right to live or be happy with us.

You send a strong message to people who suffer …

It’s not simple but, when you get sick, I think you shouldn’t hide, or withdraw on an inevitable solitude. We must be able to talk about the disease, it is part of existence. Too bad if I tremble or if I have a mistake, I have to live! I try to accept these changes, in myself but also in the relationships that I maintain with those I love. I have long protected my two daughters who, now young adults, watch over me. I become the fragile little girl that I was a child again … This new cycle is not easy to accept and I sometimes live it with a lot of distress but it is so.

In your work, you decade your illness with different names – parking, prakison, parka … – but rarely of the exact word, why?

I want to keep it at a distance. Not to designate the disease by its exact name is a way of declaring war on it. In writing lies my freedom, but also my weapon. She helped me a lot to look at pathology as an external thing to which I do not reduce myself. Thanks to writing, I was able to stay myself without giving in to the disaster. In reality, I suffer from a parkinsonian syndrome and a lewy*body disease, which medicine still has trouble identifying and does not know how to cure.

Wondering why me? Where are you with this question?

I no longer ask myself, she no longer makes sense. It would be like asking me “why life?” Leaving the doctor, stunned by the diagnosis, I laughed. It may seem strange but I found a freedom that I had not given myself so far. Of course, I would have preferred never to get sick, but this “parking”, this “paddington” also brought me beautiful things. As, for example, this gift to one day receive a phone call from my sister Françoise, in tears. We had been cold for years and she had just learned what happened to me. Today we see each other again. We are reconciled and very happy to be. The disease does not only represent misfortune …

What makes you happy?

The great love of my loved ones, my children, my husband. I also receive many brands of affection and sympathy since the release of the book. I would like to respond to all the letters but my hand betrays me, which is very difficult. My writing produces like cat claws on paper and I can’t resolve the anonymity of the computer. The other day, I was in a park near my home. A lady came to me and kissed me with great tenderness by saying to me: “Thank you, you have a lot of courage.” So many things happen in these meetings and in the mail that I receive, like sparks of great humanity.

However, the disease has changed your daily life. How do you tame these changes?

I learn slowness, characteristic of pathology. I take the time, as I had never done before. I’m going to walk in the Palais-Royal gardens, not far from my home. This place is so beautiful! I look at the clouds, I let myself go to my reveries. I read a lot. I resource myself with Pascal, Montaigne, Quignard, Sollers… I discovered François Infreser. He too had Parkinson and, in his books, gave him nicknames, like Miss P. I especially lucky to be able to count on my loved ones, my daughters who take turns with me and my husband, Thomas. Together, we dream of setting up an association to support caregivers. A way of giving, if not meaning, at least an extension to what happens to us.

Do you stay at war against Parkinson?

Yes, always, even if I know some defeats. My universe has shrunk, marked by this fragility, this constant fear of falling, this capricious memory … but I do not want to resign myself. I resist my way, by not giving up life and its moments of joy.