The redemption of Claudia Marthe, Elodie’s mother: from drug addiction to a dream wedding on the lake

Who knows what Mrs Claudia Marthe would have thought if someone had told her twenty years ago that one day, at 57, she would get married in a wonderful villa on Lake Como. That she would be beautiful and radiant, with her loving eyes turned to her husband at the moment of cutting the cake, obviously white and four tiers high. A classic within a classic. And who knows if, to this woman with many lives, some of which were very complicated, they had told that her eldest daughter, on her wedding day, would sing a song a cappella, and that everyone would observe her not only for her voice so special, but because she had now become one of the most important singers in Italian entertainment.

The story of Claudia Marthe, Elodie’s mother, challenges even the most emancipated among us to find a more fitting definition of “happy ending”, talking about his wedding the other day. Because the joy of this moment was not only not to be taken for granted, but it would have seemed unthinkable to herself when she was the age her daughter is today. Far from her dream home on Lake Como, she tried not to sink into the difficulties of her life in the Quartaccio neighborhood of Rome. A young mother struggling with enormous problems and an unhappy existence close to the father of her girls. «My parents separated when I was eight years old but even before that they weren’t very happy, there wasn’t a good atmosphere at home – Elodie said in the past -. My mother was a cubist, she was a girl with problems, she had me at 21 years old. Both suffered a lot and were honest about it, they never disguised their discomfort.” Those problems had a more precise name: «Drug addiction. I understood it after a while but I didn’t react by getting angry, even though I had a lot of anger inside me for a long time. I said okay, I’ll give you a hand, I’ll try to understand how to help. I don’t feel like placing blame on them, but I’ve spent years trying to fix something that can’t be fixed, not by a little girl.”

Over time, however, things really settled down. Elodie has also made herself known for being a tough woman, who goes straight on her own path, and it seems that her mother is no different. The relationship between them is one of great union and respect. Also made of caroms, of reflections, of new awareness. The singer-songwriter who grew up too quickly said that as a child she was ashamed of her mother’s work as a cubist. Until she found herself doing it herself. Understanding, once again, that judging makes no sense, that everyone tries to do their best and that sometimes we succeed, other times we don’t.

Born in 1967 in the French Antilles, Marthe seems to have a lot in common with her daughter, including that extraordinary ability not to be crushed by circumstances but, rather, to stubbornly build a different destiny than the one we seem called to live. Today, light years away from those difficulties, but enriched by the experience they give you when you overcome them, Marthe is an appreciated contemporary artist, a proud mother and, on the other day, also a happy bride.