At the beginning of the year Thérèse has left us. She struggled with remarkable courage against the illness that undermined her condition since years.
We knew her since many years and we regret that she is no longer with us. Her enthusiasm, her capacity to organize, her friendship, we miss it everyday more and more.
We have met her at CERN in the group of the ‘Cernoises’ club. The Soviet Union had just collapsed and a Russian lady, whose husband worked at CERN, had started a language course in her mother tongue. Everything had to be invented: we needed to find the manual that was adapted to us for this difficult learning and a modern way to familiarize with the Russian culture. It was all done with success.
We formed a multi cultural group: there was an American lady, an Italian one, a French one, an Egyptian one, a Czechian one, a Hungarian one and a Russian one. Our cultural differences might have created distance between one and another and yet exactly the contrary happened because of Thérèse’s dedication to friendship and gift of her time and joy of living to reinforce the group’s cohesion. E.g. she prepared for us delicious meals, served on refined dishes, on a table that was decorated with great care, every time differently, decorated with flowers or the season’s greenery. It is for the greater part thanks to her that our friendship continues to exist today.
A music lover she was, she played the piano and the pipe organ. We learned and sung together nice Russian melodies and we went listening at the Satigny temple, where she improvised for us little concerts. She was
very warmhearted and her simplicity made we forgot her vast culture and her aristocratic origins.
She also was very religious, always she had a little word of hope for everyone of us. Her favorite motto was: “You ought to be like the proton: always positive!”
Peggy, Laura, Névine, Gabriella, Maria, Nina, Lioudmila, Macha et Natacha