The summer of 2017 was no different, but it turned into a season that I will never forget.
I was camping with my dad and our close family friends just outside of Thunder Bay, Ont. It was our third year in a row making this trip and I was having the time of my life. I never thought that it would be cut short.
Two days into the trip, my dad told me that my grandpa was in the hospital. This was my dad’s stepfather but he was the only grandpa that I had ever known. Here we were, over eight hours away from home, while the rest of my family was sitting in a hospital waiting room. I remember sitting at the bonfire that night while my dad was on the phone with my aunt and it felt like forever. When he finally got off the phone, he told me that the doctors said that he would be OK. He was awake and talking. I was happy, but felt bad for not being with my family.
Early the next morning, I was awakened by my dad. I noticed my bag was gone and my dad’s truck was packed and running. My dad then told me news that I dreaded hearing — my grandpa had passed away. I was bawling at this point. I was terrified, confused, sad, but mostly mad. I was saying to myself, “How could doctors make such a big mistake?”
My dad and I left the campground that morning to go back home. The car ride was silent. It was the longest car ride I had ever been on.
During the week after he died and we had the visitation and the funeral, I continued to pray and talk to God. Whenever I thought of my grandpa, I knew that he was with God. God needed a kind and worthy man to walk with Him in Heaven and, of course, that was my grandpa. I thanked God for giving me such an amazing man to look up to. I knew that God was there for me, or at least I thought He was.
A few days after the funeral, my dad told me that his birth father had died of cancer. I had only met him once, earlier that summer, but it still hurt. I wasn’t allowed to go to the funeral and I was upset. Two men that I was supposed to be able to look up to and talk to weren’t with me anymore. I was mad.
How could God have done this to me? He takes one amazing person away from me and then doesn’t think it’s enough so He takes another? It wasn’t until a few weeks later, when I talked to my grandma, that I understood God’s plan.
God took people up to Heaven with Him when He was ready. And He would talk to me and be there for me for as long as I needed Him. And right now I needed Him.
I talked to God all the time after that. I knew that He was there for me. I trust now that God knew what He was doing that summer and I thank Him for blessing me with two amazing grandfathers to remember.
(St. Pierre, 16, is a Grade 11 student at St. Mary’s College in Sault Ste Marie, Ont.)