2024-04-14 05:00:02
Published on 04/14/2024 at 7:00 a.m. Written by Inès Pons-Teixeira
Come to Metz, in Moselle, to meet an extraordinary comic book author. Xavier, nicknamed The Starry Man, is a designer but also a caregiver in a palliative care service. The nurse with more than 170,000 subscribers on Instagram publishes his fourth book.
Beautiful Sunday stories
Discover inspiring stories of solidarity and altruism, and set out to encounter generosity. Emotions guaranteed every Sunday!
France Télévisions uses your e-mail address to send you the newsletter “The beautiful stories of Sunday”. You can unsubscribe at any time via the link at the bottom of this newsletter. Our privacy policy
He arranged to meet us in one of his favorite places, a café in Metz (Moselle) where he got into the habit of drawing. Standing at 1.93 meters tall, a tall, tattooed man with a tender heart. Xavier, aka The Star-Spangled Man – because he has star-shaped tattoos on his left arm – describes himself as a “marshmallow in a mirror cabinet”. In his graphic novels, the nurse-designer of Belgian origin, living in Lorraine for fifteen years, tells with humor and tenderness the stories he experiences with his patients on a daily basis. The star nurse of social networks publishes his fourth book, Constellation.
Since 2017, this adopted Messin has shared on his Instagram account anecdotes regarding his life and his hospital service, rarely in the spotlight because associated with the end of life. “Every time I told someone that I worked in palliative care, I got a reaction of pity. As if it was a punishment to work in this department. Proximity to death, mourning necessarily has something very disturbing”confides Xavier.
This profession is fascinating, halfway between medicine and psychology, it is not limited to the end of life
Xavier aka The Starry Man, designer and palliative care nurse
A shadow profession, highlighted in a drawing, which he shares with his 170,000 subscribers on Instagram. “The reaction of the general public and caregivers was beyond my expectations. Before sharing my drawings regarding my daily life as a caregiver, I was a little frustrated because the received ideas were far from what I actually experienced in my work. This profession is fascinating, halfway between medicine and psychology, it is not limited to the end of life. There are inevitably difficult stories but also moments of great richness and emotion”delivers the caregiver.
Xavier aka The Starry Man. • © Inès Pons-Teixeira, France Télévisions
These are universal, deeply human stories that touch us or will touch us all one day or another.
Xavier aka The Starry Man, designer and palliative care nurse
Mona, Serge, Olivier… all are patients that The Starry Man was able to know and support in palliative care. Their story can be discovered in the fourth album of the Starry Man, the very poignant Constellation. “Telling these stories through drawing is a bit in my DNA as a Brussels resident, I learned to read and I grew up with comics. I feared that it would be anxiety-provoking, poorly handled and that people would not understand it. But these are universal stories, deeply human, which touch us or which will touch us all one day or another”summarizes Xavier.
Mona was one of The Starry Man’s patients. Excerpt from the graphic novel “Constellation”. • © The Starry Man
Already available for pre-order, the graphic novel Constellation will be published on April 19, 2024. A dive into the daily life of palliative care full of humanity, which succeeds in being both moving and funny.
1713071655
#TESTIMONY #Nurse #designer #Lhomme #étoilé #presents #Constellation #universal #deeply #human #stories #life
