Jonathan’s pack | The Press

In the photo, we notice the basketball floating towards the basket, first.

Then, looking closer, we see a young man, from behind, being lifted by a group of boys, his friends.

The balloon floats above the group.

The young man lifted by his friends has his arms vertical. We guess that he has just thrown the ball, towards the basket.

His name is Jonathan Dutil. Jonathan has brain cancer. Stage 4, the final stage, the one from which the chances of returning are… slim.

Jonathan, yes, is diminished by illness. Cognitively, physically. Cancer can isolate patients.

However, it is here that the photo conceals an incredible beauty, that it embodies an equally incredible solidarity: Jonathan, sick, has never been alone in his illness.

It was Mireille Bruneau, the deputy director of the school, who contacted me to tell me about “the beauty and humanity” that have surrounded Jonathan for months, at school and outside of school, since the announcement of his cancer.

When Jonathan started losing his hair in October 2023, his boys shaved theirs. Over three lunch periods at school, around twenty young people went under the razor.

When he started having difficulty walking, a larger group of around twenty teenagers in their South Shore school took turns tirelessly pushing his wheelchair to school…

Because Jonathan didn’t want to quit school.

And when his eyes and ears started to fail, because the tumor was growing on the optic and hearing nerves, his friends were his eyes and ears, in class, explaining to him what the teachers were saying, slowly.

I spoke to Mr.^me Bruneau. I spoke to Jonathan’s parents, Sonia Desbiens and Jean-François Dutil. I spoke to four friends of Jonathan, Victor Gendron, Étienne Jourdain, Loïc Bouffard and Jacob Gosselin…

Mireille, referring to the photo I spoke to you about at the beginning of this column: “ [Avant les Fêtes]on the sidelines of a basketball tournament, they lifted him up so that he could shoot baskets, like when he played. They made him an album, with photos, with messages of support…”

Sonia: “There is a pack that has formed around Jonathan. They help the injured wolf, they love him. We feel that it’s natural for them. And it’s mutual, the good they do each other: by taking care of their friend, they do themselves good. »

Jean-François adds: “I arrive at Dario’s, a friend of Jonathan’s, where he is expected for a party. Look, I don’t have time to put the car in “Park” for his friends to leave Dario’s. There are 15, 20 of them! I don’t have time to unbuckle my seat belt as there are already two of them in the back seat, to unbuckle him and help him get out…”

And when the pack learned that there was no longer any possible treatment to cure Jonathan, they wrote to Sonia and Jean-François: “We are gathered in a room at the school, we cry, but we cannot will never let go…”

And they kept their word.

Jean-François expresses a wish, at this stage of the interview, that the deputy director Mireille Bruneau had also expressed during our conversation: “That’s why we want the spotlight to be on Jonathan’s friends, not about Jonathan’s illness. »

Through the screen of ZoomSonia handed me some Kleenex: it had been a long time since I had bawled in an interview.

Sonia: “They are extraordinary, but I dare say that it is because we are attracted to what we are. Jonathan is an extraordinary boy. We feel that our son is surrounded and loved. As parents, it’s a beautiful gift: we know it leaves a mark. »

Jean-François: “You know, the school is there to teach math and French. By helping Jonathan, his friends learn much greater things, like kindness, like service. They grow their emotional maturity, taking care of Jonathan. Is it the role of the school to do that? »

I dare to answer, Mr. Dutil: It is also at school that we learn all this.

I spoke to Jonathan, who sleeps a lot these days, exhausted. The head is all there, even if speech is difficult, even if his parents slowly repeated my words to him, behind the screen.

His friends, he says, for a year, but especially for three, four months, have done him the greatest good.

Saturday was Jonathan Dutil’s birthday. And this Sunday there will be a party for the 17th^e Jonathan’s birthday.

As Sonia, his mother, says: “He is here, he is alive. We enjoy every moment. »

The family will be there, too, at the party. Jean-François, Sonia, of course. Florence, his big sister, Jonathan’s great accomplice, will be there.

Will also be present, this whole beautiful pack of friends who, for months, have never let go of Jonathan…

And this is the grace that I wish us all, for 2025: to be as well surrounded, supported and loved as Jonathan is by his pack of friends.