Reverend Grandpapa Ben Lemay

Ben Lemay, my maternal grandfather, will be turning 94 years old this year. Grand-Papa, as I call him, especially in this past year, has been waiting for his death. As strange as it seems to say, he is actually looking forward to the day.

My grandfather hopes that his passing will be tomorrow, or the following day or even that it would have been yesterday but something still holds him here. He is incredibly healthy and extremely lucid for his age. He is a vegetarian, refuses to take any medication, has a strict diet and an exercise routine that he methodically follows every day. He claims that he must be healthy to pass over to the other side because he stills has another long life to live.

My grandfather was baptized, married and baptized his children in the Roman Catholic Church. In the 1970’s, he converted to the Protestant faith, obliging his wife and children to follow, then taking it a step further and gained the title Reverend by becoming a Protestant minister. Since his retirement, my grandfather’s curiosity for religion has continued. He now dutifully follows the Urantia Book, a spiritual book published in the 1950s.

Life, today’s society and of course, religion are topics that my grandfather passionately talks about and takes very seriously. He has lived a life full of adventure, once a horn player in a marching band, a police officer, a medical aid for the forestry camps, almost a pilot, a ski jumper and a trained nutritionist; now Ben Lemay – a widow, a father of six, a grandfather of eleven and a great-grandfather of thirteen – patiently awaits his death.

It is only in these past couple of years that I have grown closer to my grandfather. To understand him, and the evolvement of the last years of his life, I visit him to talk and to listen. In the process, I photograph him.