It is a drama that will remain engraved forever in the heart of the actor. In 2006, actor Patrick Chesnais lost his son Ferdinand, one of his three children, from his relationship with actress Coralie Seyrig. Aged 20, he was the victim of a car accident because of a friend who drove drunk. Their car hit another vehicle while they were driving in the wrong direction on the Paris ring road, reports Purepeople.
In his book, Life is Beautiful. I kill myself telling you!, released in 2020, the actor confided with emotion on the loss of his son and the pain that results from it. “I saw him, lying forever in this box, right in front of me, carried by strong undertakers, calm, extinguished, definitely dead…”, he wrote and added: “I thought to myself that I should have protected him better and that it was I who should have been in this box… I was not a good father. A good father prevents his son from dying at twenty”.
The evening of the disappearance of his son, Patrick Chesnais had agreed to go on the boards despite the drama. “The situation was on the edge, on the edge of everything, of distress, of death, of life going on. It’s like eating, pissing, sleeping, at some point it comes, it drips,” he explained. in his work.
In his new book, Letters of Apology, the 75-year-old actor has collected all the letters written to the people he loved, missives that have become “apology letters”.
His first letter is dedicated to his deceased son whom he asks to forgive him. I beg your pardon for not having always known how to deal with you“, can we read. for not being able to [l]admire him growing up, I apologize for not being a witness at your wedding, I apologize for not becoming the ideal Grandpa you would have dreamed of for little descendants”.
A text full of pain in which he gives himself up with an open heart to all these moments that he will not be able to share with him, of his “beautiful eyes”, of “his cascading laughter” but also of no longer “loving life as ” and to forget “the things” which concern him. It will end with these lines that upset: “You, you will always have your magnificent twenty years. I apologize for getting old”.