Dreams, Love, Death - Claude Fouillade

Lives are like intersecting circles, like a kid tossing pebbles into a pond, creating circles that ripple outward, some immediately intersecting and growing together, others touching just briefly before they disappear, leaving the pond still.

Claude Fouilladd grows up in Paris, after the War. There’s a park he loves, Jardin du Luxembourg; and, decades later, he spends a lot of time there with his wife, Sharon, the love of his life.

He ends up teaching at NMSU.

Ilana Lapid grows up in Las Cruces. A young filmmaker and NMSU professor, she makes an award-winning docudrama in Belize about the illegal wildlife trade. About to leave for a film festival in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, she is diagnosed with a rare leukemia that would likely have killed her if she had left. (She recovers.)

After one of Ilana’s last chemotherapy sessions, she meets Claude, now 73, waiting for his first treatment. He has a rare, incurable cancer, certain to kill him within a few years. She reassures him about chemo, and they bond.

Claude writes a poem for Sharon and asks Ilana to make it into a film. A last gift to Sharon; but Ilana has not directed since her illness, and she declines. When she visits Claude in the hospital, he wakes up so happy to see her that she agrees, which fills him with such joy he announces he’ll act in it – and take along as many oxygen tanks as necessary.

They recreate the Paris park on a stage as Claude recalls it. In the poemfilm, an old man (Claude) sits in a rented chair, where he sits every afternoon. He pays the rent with coins so old they’re no longer legal tender. The park attendant accepts the coins then says, “Here’s your change, sir,” and hands them back. “Do you think she’ll come today?” the attendant asks. Claude consults his watch and says she’s already late, and the attendant says perhaps she’ll come tomorrow, and limps off. In postwar France veterans usually held those jobs, and many people were missing – from war or concentration camps, or as refugees. Or maybe Claude is in the next life, awaiting Sharon.

Claude is seated at left; Ilana standing at right

Ilana gets a family friend, a motorcycle-poet grown old, to play the attendant, and films Claude explaining the poem to him. Portraying compassion ain’t hard when you’re watching an exhausted man, running on love and oxygen, working to make a poetic film for his soon-to-be widow.

Ilana also starts making a documentary about Claude, the poem, and the making of the poemfilm. The pandemic interrupts shooting. Claude’s condition worsens; but one day, during a shoot, after he’s started a new course of treatment and he feels great, Claude thinks they have much longer together than supposed. Claude and Sharon dance to “Parlez moi d’amour.”

Suddenly he’s in hospice. Ilana quickly finishes editing the poemfilm and arranges to shoot Claude giving it to Sharon, but because of hospice, they reschedule for the following Sunday. Sunday Claude is no longer around. The film becomes the gift-from-beyond-the-grave that he seems always to have meant it to be.

A wonderful life has been extinguished too soon. There’s a moving short film, and soon there will be the longer documentary. Everyone involved, including Ilana’s wonderful young crew, has given each other a gift that’s all the more precious because we know that, eventually, all our rippling circles will disappear.

Merci, Claude!

                                                    – 30 --

[The above column appeared this morning, Sunday, 19 July 2020, in the Las Cruces Sun-News, and on the newspaper's website, as well as on KRWG’s website. A radio-commentary version will air during the week on KRWG, and on KTAL, 101.5 FM (http://www.lccommunityradio.org/), and will be available on demand soon on KRWG’s website.]

[By coincidence, Claude’s obituary is also in today's Sun-News.] I want to let Sharon know how sorry I am sorry for her loss. I enjoyed my brief interaction with Claude, whom I wish I’d known longer and better. Thanks to Claude and Ilana for involving me tangentially in their project. The shoots moved me, the final version of the poem-film moves me, and of course losing Claude saddens me. It was impressive to watch him explaining to the crew how the park should look, telling me about the world of his poem, and playing his role, while frequently changing oxygen tanks. ]

[According to the obituary:

Dr. Claude Jean Fouillade (1946-2020) passed away in his sleep on July 11, 2020 in Las Cruces, NM after a hard-fought battle with cancer. Born an only child in Paris, France, Claude served in the French Air Force as an officer and English instructor. He was educated at the Sorbonne and then, upon moving to America, he completed his PhD studies in Romance Languages (Medieval French Literature) at the University of New Mexico.

Claude went on to teach language studies at the University level for over fifty years, including the last thirty-five years at New Mexico State University, where he served for some years as Chair of the Language Department. During his career Dr. Fouillade taught thousands of students French, Spanish, Latin, movie history, and French culture. He retired from NMSU in 2018 as Professor Emeritus. Beyond the classroom, Claude was immensely passionate in his research and writing on French literature and French art history across the American Southwest for which he published numerous works. ]

[It’s startling to realize that less than two full years ago Claude was NMSU’s professor of the month. On that occasion he wrote:

“Hello Aggies! My name is Claude Fouillade. I have been teaching at NMSU since August 1985 so this is my 32nd year of teaching here. I was born and raised in Paris, France and it is my favorite place to travel back to. I hold a Ph.D. in Medieval Languages and Literatures from the University of New Mexico. Outside of teaching, I like to grow a vegetable garden with my wife, look at medieval manuscripts and watch European football matches or movies. I enjoy reading. I find it difficult to pick one book as my favorite, but one that I have enjoyed reading on several occasions is Chrétien de Troyes’ Li Contes del Graal which tells of the Knights of the Round Table and Perceval in particular. My favorite quote is from Voltaire, “Il faut cultiver notre jardin” (We must cultivate our garden). 

“My favorite thing about the Honors College is that it is one of the few places on campus where students and faculty from all colleges can meet, exchange ideas and discover new ones. If I could change one thing about the honors college it would be that every student at the University would be more exposed to it. My advice to students is don’t wait until tomorrow what you can get done today. “ ]