Un arbre qui tombe fait plus de bruit qu’une forêt qui pousse
Depuis toujours ils savaient qu’ils iraient vivre à la campagne pour mieux profiter du temps qui passe moins vite. Ils ont emménagé à deux heures de Paris sur la terre de leur enfance. La suite est imprévue puisque Piero décède d’un accident cardiaque au printemps 2020, laissant derrière lui sa compagne Amélie et leurs trois enfants Manon, Antoine et Charlie. Ce foyer, devenu monoparental, parvient progressivement à créer un cadre où chacun retrouve sa place, dans la douceur et l’amour, en intégrant l’empreinte de Piero restée intacte. Frappée par le deuil, cette famille se définit aujourd’hui comme une « tribu » composant avec des équilibres fragiles, où chacun aide l’autre à se reconstruire en préservant sa juste place.
J’ai rencontré Amélie grâce à un ami très proche, alors que je démarrais un travail sur les formes plurielles de monoparentalités. Elle m’a alors dit : «Je ne suis pas un bon exemple de famille monoparentale, chez moi c’est le bazar.» C’est bien cela que je voulais restituer : la réalité quotidienne que cette famille vivait et sa reconstruction. J’ai ainsi été régulièrement et librement accueilli pendant dix-huit mois.
Sa situation m’a profondément touché et m’a interrogé sur la reconstruction de la cellule familiale après un deuil. À la fois collectives et individuelles, les reconstructions se sont faites au fil des saisons. Pour cela, Amélie a décidé d’accompagner ses enfants dans un esprit d’ouverture, une atmosphère sereine où chacun peut regarder la réalité en face sans risquer de s’effondrer.
Piero, fort, énergique et passionné laisse soudainement son atelier intouché. Un lieu foisonnant de créations, une grange où le bois et les outils sont omniprésents et où chacun peut encore ressentir sa présence. Les heures passées à concevoir, façonner de nouveaux meubles, ont imprégné les lieux d’une odeur de sciure, d’huile et de terre qui lui donne toujours vie. Ce désordre apparent fait écho au temps qu’il faut pour que chacun puisse « remettre les choses en place », à l’abri du regard des autres.
Trampolines, cross, caravane, salon, sont autant d’espaces de jeux que se réapproprient progressivement les enfants. Chacun y recrée des rituels passés permettant notamment de faire revivre le père. Il est temps d’oublier sa colère et de se découvrir plus fort et plus grand qu’on ne pensait.
Dix-huit mois faits de douleurs, de doutes mais aussi de rires se sont écoulés. Ils ont permis au fil des saisons et des événements d’avancer dans le processus de reconstruction, d’aller de l’avant, à l’image d’une forêt qui cicatrise et retrouve un nouvel équilibre.
They had always known they would move to the countryside to better enjoy the time that went by more slowly there. They moved two hours from Paris to the land of their childhood. What happens next is unexpected since Piero dies of a heart attack in the spring of 2020, leaving behind his partner Amélie and their three children Manon, Antoine and Charlie. This household, now single-parent, gradually manages to create a setting where everyone finds their place, in gentleness and love, while integrating Piero’s imprint, which has remained intact. Grief-stricken, this family now defines themselves as a “tribe”, dealing with a fragile balance, where each one helps the other to rebuild while keeping their rightful place.
I met Amélie through a very close friend of mine as I was starting a project on the plural forms of single parenthood. She then told me: “I’m not a good example of a single-parent family, my home is a mess”. This is exactly what I wished to render: the day-to-day reality that this family was experiencing, and their reconstruction. I was thus regularly and unrestrictedly welcomed for 18 months.
Her situation affected me deeply and made me ponder the reconstruction of the family unit after a bereavement. Both collective and individual, the reconstruction processes took place throughout the seasons. For this, Amélie had decided to accompany her children in a spirit of openness, a peaceful atmosphere where each one of them could look reality in the face without risking breaking down.
Strong, energetic and passionate Piero suddenly leaves his workshop untouched. A place teeming with creations, a barn where wood and tools are ubiquitous and where everyone can still feel his presence. The hours spent on designing, shaping new furniture, have permeated the place with a scent of sawdust, oil and earth that still gives life to it. This apparent disorder echoes the time needed for everyone to “put things back into place”, away from the eyes of the others.
Trampolines, cross, caravan, living room, are all play areas that the children reclaim bit by bit. Each of them recreates past rituals, allowing notably to revive their father. Time has come for them to forget about their anger and to realize they are stronger and bigger than they thought.
18 months made of pains, doubts but also of laughs have passed. They have permitted, throughout the seasons and events, to progress in the reconstruction process, to move forward, just like a forest that heals and finds a new balance.
Plant ecosystems are extraordinary, and their capacity to continue is a source of inspiration for us: not only do they pass on the elements necessary for the life and development of younger generations, but they also resist various disturbances thanks to types of cooperation. In short, they possess an amazing resilience which allows them to get back into balance.
Higher, further
Among the plant world, trees are particularly fascinating. We all know more or less precisely what a tree is: a long-lived plant, a large land plant with a trunk that rises vertically without relying on others to stand upright. But why grow taller than its conspecifics?
Growing until reaching the others, or even surpassing them, in order to get to the vital light. Indeed, growing taller allows the tree to provide its green leaves with the light needed for photosynthesis, which produces the organic matter on which the entire tree lives and develops. It can then disperse seeds and spores, giving its offspring the opportunity to establish themselves further away. Thus, trees have strategies underpinned by the community effect.
In the very long history of plants, evolutionary strategies have occurred repeatedly and independently. In other words, although the first trees appeared just under 400 million years ago, not all trees are descended from these species, and the evolution processes can be surprising, as in the case of the apple tree, which is actually more closely related to a strawberry tree than to a chestnut or a plane tree.
The power of adaptability
Although they are massive, trees are living beings that we sometimes perceive less as individuals than as components of a larger group: the forest. In a way, and contrary to the well-known metaphor, one cannot see the tree for the forest and remains blind to the immense diversity of the 73,000 or so tree species in the world.
This multiplicity of species and ages guarantees the resistance and resilience of the ecosystem in question. Thus, if a minor external disturbance occurs, its plasticity will allow the ecosystem to absorb it without difficulty, rather like a reed that will bend in the wind. However, if the turbulence is too great, a period of great change, and adaptation will begin, leading to a new equilibrium. These processes are not always perceptible on a human scale because they sometimes take several decades, or even centuries in some cases, to find their resolution and reach a new state of stability.