“Letters to Raymond” is not a collection that can leave you indifferent. He maintains the memory of the husband of Annie Pélissié. The former teacher and prison visitor speaks to her late husband demonstrating that her love for Raymond survived the death of this loved one who was the recipient of her dear letters.
There are no doors that resist Annie Pélissié, those of prisons, like those of the secrets of the prisoners she visited, for several years at the Cahors remand center to “bring them listening and comfort” as this former retired teacher reminds us. She devoted part of her life to this unusual and very useful activity, her mission as a prison visitor.
Annie recounted this incredible experience in a book titled I was a prison visitor which we have already mentioned.
Neither victim, nor judge, nor lawyer
Thus, the doors of the prison were wide open to her, just as, little by little, the souls and hearts of the prisoners who confided in her “because I slowly managed to gain their trust and sometimes even the friendship of certain whom I still meet in Cahors on the boulevard. We exchange a few words together. They thank me for the role I played with them. Often the conversation goes no further than that. They remain humble and discreet. Me too. In prison, some had entrusted me with horrible things, often untellable. What do you want, it’s part of the human species. These were primarily sexual offences. I’m not the victim, I’m not a judge or a lawyer, I’m listening to you: that’s what I told them and that was enough for them to free their words,” says Annie.
She is a little moved all the same by remembering this key period when she had accesses that she believed locked in the prison universe.
Letters to soothe his pain
There is another door, even more complicated to push, which the former prison visitor nevertheless managed to open with an incredibly powerful key that she has always held in the depths of her being: love. Inconsolable at the death of the man of her life, she does not let go of his hand. Anne Pélissié’s latest work concerns the trips she had the good fortune to take around the world with Raymond. But first, there were the letters.
“Raymond died 4 years ago, in October. We lived 58 years together. November was a terrible month for me. To soothe my pain, I began to write him letters when I expressed the desire or the need. I wanted to continue to communicate with him, despite the death. It did me a lot of good,” she says. These letters have been published in a new book simply titled Letters to Raymond (Treboulou editions).
Annie and Raymond: growing old together
“I met widows, like me, who told me that my book had done them good. With these letters, I felt Raymond’s presence strongly and I can even bluntly say that I took pleasure in seeing him again,” continues Annie.
“We have made about sixty trips together. And since I can no longer tell Raymond you remember these escapades around the world, I wanted to tell them and once again talk to him. So I wrote a specific book about our travels. He just went out. Its title is Voyages. Raymond does not leave her. He has become a part of herself that she loves more than anything in the world and that accompanies her as if she always had her head resting on her husband’s shoulder.
Osmosis, symbiosis: like a mother with her children, a woman with a man. Annie begins her letters with: “Raymond, I have a lot to tell you…” as if she were suggesting that they grow old together.
Read also: https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2016/09/17/2420710-annie-pelissie-pousse-portes-prison-repousse-prejuges.html