In a lengthy Facebook post, singer Maxime Landry first looks back on a disturbing and defining moment in his life; the day her father took his own life.
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Maxime Landry today highlights the 20 years that have passed since his father Bertrand committed suicide. “Perhaps there is someone today who needs to listen to this and hold on to the fact that there is nothing more painful for a child than to lose their father or mother,” he wrote.
“On August 28, 2003 I woke up without knowing that it was the last day of my youth,” writes the then only 16-year-old. He explains that as soon as he saw his cousin Isabelle arriving, he knew something serious had happened. “I knew right away that I would never see you again,” writes the 36-year-old singer.
The 2009 Star Académie grand winner regrets not saying “I love you” to his father before leaving the house that day. “I was just a teenager. I loved her in silence… My pillar […] When I believed him, when he told me he was fine…”
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Twenty years after the tragedy, not a day goes by that the singer doesn’t think about his father.
“And if I’m telling you about it, it’s not because I enjoy telling my life story and going back to that painful time,” he said, stressing that he hopes to help just one person who goes through it Kind of a difficult moment.
“Bertrand, I love you. And finally, I tell my mother that I love her. Even though I’m not a teenager anymore, I love him secretly too often, even today,” he concludes, posting a photo of his father and him as a very young child.
In 2015, Maxime Landry published his first novel, Diary of the Disappeared, in which he tells the story and fate of his father, who fell into depression. A novel he wrote to exorcise the pain associated with the suicide of his father, who was only 42 at the time.