It is the great love of his life. Laëtitia, who lives in Marseille, however grew up in adversity, and suffers from an autoimmune disease. “I am a child of the DDASS, and I have long sought my identity. I even joined the Marseille underworld at 13 to get my mother out of the clutches of prostitution.

But with Max, her fiancé, she experienced long years of absolute happiness.

They met about twenty years ago. “At the time, I was working in real estate, tells us Laëtitia. One day, when I was closing the agency and trying to start my motorcycle to go home, I couldn’t. So, I put in a few kicks. He lived just above. He came down and told me: “it won’t start better like that!”.

They then see each other often, on the occasion of a cigarette break, or to go for a drink. “And over time, we went from friendship to love,” says Laëtitia. Their relationship is fusional, complicit, full of respect. “There was a lot of love”, shares the Marseilles.

She still fondly remembers her husband’s marriage proposal. “He took me to my father’s grave, and he pulled out a ring. He asked my father for my hand. He was a very romantic man.”

The wedding was set for May 19, 2022. “Everything was planned. We had the place, the costumes…”, continues Laëtitia.

But a few months ago, everything changed. On Christmas Eve, Max has to join Laëtitia and her mother so that they can spend the evening together. He just lost his mother the day before. “We had then planned a little Christmas, between us, to support him. But then the police call me. I am told that my fiancé had an accident, you have to come to the scene”.

Max was hit by a truck. The driver was drunk, under the influence of narcotics.

“It was an atrocious crime scene, a disaster. He was on a motorcycle, he was killed instantly,” explains Laëtitia.

The investigation lasted more than a month. “During this time, I went to see Max every day in the morgue. I will not explain to you the state of putrefaction of the body… And at the time of the burial, the employees of the funeral directors refused to take care of the body. It was I who had to do the embalming”.

The experience is traumatic for the bereaved fiancée. “But with all the love this man showed me, I would never have abandoned him,” continues Laëtitia. She makes him put on his wedding suit and puts on his wedding ring. “He left with dignity, in a white coffin, he loved white.”

And if the pain is immense, Laëtitia refuses, however, to close the book of their story, which she describes as “Shakespearian”.

“I have to go by the name Max. It is my identity. Just because we’re separated by death doesn’t mean the story doesn’t continue. The love continues. Thanks to this man, I discovered so many things. He taught me to know how to be loved”, explains Laëtitia.

“Every day he kissed my hand when he left, and again when he came home. And then, as I have an autoimmune disease, I am often hospitalized, I have convulsive and epileptic seizures which are not pretty to see, but he never left me. So I don’t see why I’m going to stop the story,” she says.

She approached a lawyer to obtain a posthumous marriage. In French law, the procedure is rare, but not prohibited. “The President of the Republic may, for serious reasons, authorize the celebration of the marriage if one of the future spouses has died after the completion of official formalities unequivocally indicating his consent.”, specifies legifrance.

The request must be addressed directly to the Keeper of the Seals, and the union does not, however, give rise to any inheritance. Whatever, for the Marseilles. “I absolutely have to be Max’s wife, so between the benefit that can bring me, for example, to bring a civil party in the criminal case or to bear his name, I chose to bear his name, without hesitation”.

The procedure is underway, and Laëtitia now needs a lot of patience. “Because of the Covid, family affairs have been delayed. So it might take some time. But I’m hopeful that my request will be successful. I received a lot of support.

She has planned, the day her request will finally be accepted, to organize a small ceremony. “I hope to film it and broadcast it in the name of Max, of all that he represented. I will put on a pretty dress, he there will be wedding rings and then I’ll go and put my bouquet on her grave before going to the place where we used to hug”, says Laëtitia.

Having become a nose thanks to an adapted training for which she had already asked the President of the Republic, Laëtitia also plans to create a perfume brand in homage to her fiancé.

“I was very lucky to be loved by this man. Today, I would also like to get a one-on-one with the driver who ran him over, who is now in custody. I would like to ask him to take responsibility for his actions, but also get him to interact in the right way, to take steps to show what alcohol and drugs can cause. And give him my forgiveness.”

This double fight, Laëtitia, does not intend to abandon it anytime soon. “I owe it to Max. The love between us was stronger than death, love goes much further than life”, concludes the forties