Lolllll

Jacques, my dear grandpa

My grandfather, Jacques, was born in Sfax, Tunisia in April 1935 where he lived until he moved to France in the 1954. Everyone in my big family loves my grandfather because of his kindness, his sense of humour but also because he is a walking encyclopedia.

He loves learning things. Each time I visit him he teaches me something new and I think that he made me want to read books, learn and know…

My grandfather had six sisters and two brothers. He was their protector, their chaperon but also the one who could « succeed » in life because he was a boy. He worked very hard at school and had excellent grads when something terrible happened… His father suddenly died when he was fifteen and he had to stop school to have a job and feed the whole family. His dream to become a teacher was broken. He decided to spend days working as a taylor and night studying history, sociology, philosophy.

Because of the Independance of Tunisia in 1954, he moved to France with his family and one more time he had to give up his hopes in order to take care of his sisters and his mother. But he never gave up his books. When I visit my grandparents, I feel like in a huge library. He got married in the 1970’s with Manon, my grandmother and he had four children who are all highly educated.

My grandfather knows so many things on so many subjects. He tries to transmit his knowledge to his children and his little children.

At more than eighty, he’s still learning like a child.