A BOY NAMED VIMY
A boy full of mirth and mischief, kindness and confidence, Vimy Grant died as the sun set on the first Friday in July: He leaped into the water from the Prince of Wales Bridge and never resurfaced. His family and friends are now trying to come to terms with that terrible accident and navigate their river of grief.
The city buzzed with the energy of a young summer's evening.
A trio of friends — Vimy, Theo and Jackson — biked towards the Ottawa River to celebrate the first summer weekend in style. It was Friday, July 3. The sun was high, heat was still radiating from the sidewalks, and the boys were happy to be together after so much COVID-19-enforced distance.
For three months, the pandemic had robbed the 14-year-olds of their adolescent lifestyles. Hockey, hijinks, school and sleepovers had been replaced by Zoom classes and online gaming.
It felt good to be on their bikes again, exploring the city.
They met more friends and decided to watch the sun go down from the Prince of Wales Bridge, a rusty rail crossing that has long been a magnet for intrepid teens.
“It was something to do when everything's closed,” says Theo.
The City of Ottawa had fenced off entrances to the out-of-service bridge and warned people to stay away. But it just made the adventure that much sweeter.
The boys knew where to find holes in the fence on Lemieux Island. They pedalled to their secret spot and clambered onto the bridge. Its deck offered a panoramic view of the shining city.
They walked onto the north span that connects the island with Gatineau, and watched as a man dove, again and again, from the bridge into the river.
At some point, almost all teenage boys test their courage, take a leap into the unknown: in a schoolyard, at a hockey rink, on a bridge. They take even more risks, research shows, when they're with friends.
And while almost all adolescents will make a few bad decisions, almost all will be lucky enough to survive.
Vimy Grant was not one of them.
Vimy was named for the First World War battle that forms a vital chapter in the story of Canada.
His father, a Calgary-born member of the British marines, chose his son's name to honour all the young soldiers who died at Vimy Ridge. “Ten or 15 years ago, a lot of people had forgotten about the First (World) War,” says Justin Grant, a veteran of tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Vimy Stuart Grant was born Feb. 21, 2006, in Dorchester, England, near the family's home on the country's south coast.
Eilis Grant liked the strength of her son's name, the way it knitted him to Canada. “I've never met another Vimy,” she says.
Justin and Eilis had known each another since junior high in Calgary, but their marriage ended the year after Vimy was born. Still, they made decisions as a family, and seven years ago, they converged on Ottawa.
Vimy was an easy child who loved dogs and people, nature and Hot Wheels. He collected stamps and coins and hockey cards. “Everybody said we'd have trouble with him as a teenager because he was so easy as a child. But we never did,” Eilis says.
In Ottawa, he went to a French-language public school, Omer-Deslauriers, for grades 7 and 8. He was a popular student given to mischief: He liked to throw pens and rulers under the door of a neighbouring class to get a rise out of the teacher and entertain his classmates.
He was also unusually thoughtful. He sent his homeroom teacher, Madame Sara, an email in June at the end of this school year. “I just wanted u to know that I rlly appreciate that u took the time to help me, especially after school,” he wrote in text shorthand. “It rlly helped me and got me threw a few tests that weren't even math or science. I don't think I could have done it without you.”
Teacher Sara Jambakhsh says Vimy worked hard in Grade 8 after transferring into the demanding international baccalaureate program. She was touched by his note. “I saw him mature,” she says. “He was very special.”
Vimy was big for his age, six feet tall, with a strong nose, a broad smile and shoulder-length hair. His glorious hockey hair was often the subject of friendly jibes. Last Christmas, as soon as Vimy walked into his aunt's Calgary home, his cousin Mason fired a broadside. “You look like a girl,” Mason said. Vimy didn't miss a beat: “You look like an elf,” he told his much shorter cousin.
His friend Felix Smith saw Vimy
only once without long hair, at summer camp. “I never noticed how humongous your nose was,” Felix told him. Vimy just laughed.
Outgoing and confident, Vimy was the kind of teen who looked adults in the eye and engaged them. “He was comfortable in his own skin,” says Duane Smith, Felix's father. “You could carry on a conversation with him.”
He could also talk a blue streak. Once, while serving a four-minute penalty with his friend, Jackson, he was still in the box, talking, when the other team scored 20 seconds after the penalty expired.
Vimy loved soccer, football, martial arts and basketball, but hockey was his passion. He held court in the dressing room and loved throwing his body around on the ice. He was always smiling, no matter how tense the situation.
“He never had a down day,” says his Bantam B coach, Mark O'Connor, of the Ottawa West Golden Knights. “If it was snowing outside, he'd find a reason why that was great. If we were running a 10K, he'd find a reason why that was a good idea.”
He'd do anything for his teammates: confront an opponent taking liberties in front of the net or stand in a garbage can to make them laugh. His friends liked leaning their sticks on the back of his oversized hockey pants, which would drop to the ice like a lead weight. Teammates gravitated to him.
“I think, inside, everyone wanted to be a bit like Vimy: that relaxed guy who could let go of their anxieties,” O'Connor says.
Other hockey parents marvelled at the way Vimy would hug his mother and father at the rink right in front of his adolescent peers. He didn't seem to care what anyone thought.
“He was always a very, very affectionate child,” says his mother.
Like other boys his age, Vimy was part man, part child. He had only recently stopped sleeping with his stuffed bear, Teddy, and moved it to a shelf, Justin says. This year, father and son started going to the gym together, and would often spend evenings together at Napoli's Restaurant, where they'd eat pizza, watch hockey and socialize with the regulars. The manager, Cathy, called Vimy “the boy with the golden smile.”
In March, the COVID-19 lockdown forced Vimy's life online. He often stayed up late playing Fortnite with his friends. Eilis could hear him talking until four in the morning on Houseparty, a group video app.
When social restrictions eased in May, Vimy and his friends spent every day together as if to make up for lost time.
They played basketball at Felix's house, threw the football around at the beach, and set off on aimless adventures: They would sometimes take a bus just to see where
it went. “Even if we got lost, it was still fun,” Theo says.
Once, they decided to visit a girl in South Keys, but they missed their bus because Vimy was checking himself out in the mirror for 20 minutes while trying on hoodies. The boys had to walk six kilometres to connect with another bus.
“He was kind of a numbnuts, but it made us laugh,” Theo says. “It was part of his charm.”
The boys slagged each other mercilessly. Vimy always reminded his friends that he was in the international baccalaureate program, which made him smarter. They would turn it over on him anytime he did something dumb. “Vim,” they'd say, “I thought you were in the IB program.”
The boys had to be careful because Vimy was still the strongest and could exact punishment. “We didn't want him coming after us,” Felix says. “We'd run away screaming. He'd chase you and tackle you.”
Vimy never gave his parents reason to worry. They never saw any sign of drugs or alcohol in his life. He was happy. He was open. “He was honest and we trusted him,” Eilis says.
His curfew moved from 9:15 to 9:30 to 10 p.m. as he proved himself reliable. “Sometimes he was breaking a sweat to get in the door on time,” says Eilis, “but he always made it.”
Like all those with teenagers, Vimy's parents sought to balance freedom and safety. “I didn't like him being out on his own,” Justin says, “but I had that dilemma: If you let them do their own thing, they're going to be stronger for it.”
Justin was worried enough that he quietly spied on Vimy and his friends one evening at Westboro Beach in the early summer. “I sat on the hill and watched them from afar: It was all good-natured fun.”
Westboro Beach was a regular
destination for the boys. They'd end up there most nights to swim and to hang out. They bought a $25 inflatable raft from Walmart and took it out into the bay. Two of the boys could fit, but three would sink it.
“It was actually pretty successful,” Theo says.
Early in the summer, one of their friends introduced them to the bridge. The boys explored the tracks and watched as people, young and old, plunged into the river from its deck. Some climbed to the top of the superstructure and jumped.
“Oh yeah, no thanks,” Theo remembers saying to his friends.
But the next time they visited the bridge, the boys were not so awed by its heights: Theo and Jackson both jumped from the top.
Adolescent boys are walking, talking paradoxes. They're brilliant and foolish, thoughtful and impulsive. They can exude bravado and insecurity in equal measure. They can pretend that what their friends say doesn't matter when nothing matters more. They can risk their lives while fretting about curfew.
Vimy was scared of spiders. He hated going into his own basement. And he didn't like high places. But he wanted to jump from the top of the bridge.
Vimy tried to convince Felix to go up with him. “He wanted to do it with me, but I would never do that,” Felix says. “I'm terrified of heights. Just walking on the bridge, I would be terrified. Vim was scared of heights as well. I think that's the main reason he wanted to do it with me.”
Vimy would later tell his friends he was determined to conquer the challenge of the bridge.
I didn't like him being out on his own, but I had that dilemma: If you let them do their own thing they're going to be stronger for it.
TOMORROW: Grief flows endlessly