Essai anglais

I learned how to walk at the same time as my grandfather. On April 11, 2001, my mother gave birth to me. Soon after that, Yves Jean-Pierre, my grandfather, suffered from a CVA or a stroke, if you will. That incident caused him to lose control of the right side of his body. He could no longer walk and could hardly move or speak. He almost died. Therefore, in 2001, I was born, and my grandfather was reborn.

From what I can remember, he’s always looked the same to me: very weak. He was an average sized brown man, none of his physical traits really stood out. My grandfather looked like every other old man you would see down the street: tall, short curly hair and had wrinkles on his forehead. He had big, square shaped glasses all the time, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him without them. The only clothes I have ever seen him wear are his white overalls. I’m not sure why he only wore those, but I think it has something to do with his reduced capacities.

Although I rarely had the chance to talk to him directly, I know a lot about him from stories that my father told me. I remember I would sometimes sit on Yves’ lap to take a picture and those were pretty much the only moments I had to talk to him, but I didn’t ask him much. I only realized how great of a man he was when he passed away, in 2015. On October 18, 2015, I flew to Haiti. However, unlike all the other times I took that flight, I wasn’t happy to go there, I didn’t want to go there; I didn’t want to see what happened, my grandfather had died, and I didn’t want to accept it.  There I was, in the plane with my brother and cousin, going to the place I loved and hated the most. Everything seemed fine until the plane landed in Port-au-Prince, we talked and had fun, but we never mentioned anything related to Yves. However, when we arrived at the house, the three of us went straight to his room and stood there in silence in front of his bed for a minute. I could hear my cousin sobbing, but my brother and I just watched; my heart was crushed, but no tears came out. The house that was once filled with so much happiness and joy was now a source of pain.

I never realized how great of a man he was until his funerals, the day after I arrived in Haiti. A lot of people showed up, many were unknown to me, others I had seen once or twice, but everyone was sad of his departure. As a Christian family, the ceremony took place in a church. The pastor talked for a long time and listed all my grandfather’s achievements. There, I learned the many things he did for the country. He left Haiti at a young age to study medicine here in Canada. He came back to Haiti as a pediatrician, and saved many people, hence the multiple unknown faces that I saw at the funerals; they were all patients that my grandfather treated. I also learned that he brought with him a new method to help moms give birth in Haiti and saved a lot of lives by doing that. Now that I think about it, he never retired from his job at the hospital, even after the stroke. Death alone could stop him, and even now he continues to help us; his words and the things that he taught us will always stay no matter what. His wisdom is what keeps many of us in the family going through hard times, and it will carry on with every generation to come.

 “Pitit suspann kriye, kriye pa bay anyen, fè ti afè'w ce Yves Jean Pierre ki di'w ca.” My grandfather used to say that when we cried, and it means: “Kid, stop crying, crying doesn’t bring you anything. Keep doing your thing. It’s Yves Jean-Pierre telling you this.” Now, whenever I’m sad or whenever I fail, I think of my grandfather and tell myself to keep doing my things and some day he will be proud of me from wherever he is.

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