A very beautiful and emotional meeting took place on July 7th at the Eau Grand Air festival in Baie-Comeau in the Canadian province of Quebec. Jimmy-James Grégoire, a 21-year-old boy, who suffers from progressive spinal muscular atrophy, was able to check off one of his last wishes: to finally meet his favorite band: Simple Plan just a few weeks before peacefully passing away by his own choice.
For Jimmy-James, Simple Plan have meant a great deal for a huge part of his life as he was often seen wandering the streets of Sept-Îles and Uashat with his motorized wheelchair and his loudspeaker blasting Simple Plan songs. “Their songs bring me closer to my own story, they represent many things. I already have my Simple Plan playlist for when I die,” noting that his favorite song is ‘A Million Pictures Of You’.
According to the article by Le Manic (which brought us Jimmy-James’ story), during their performance at the festival, Simple Plan dedicated a song to Jimmy-James while the crowd cheered him on by shouting his name. He even received a special guitar solo from Jeff Stinco. “It was beautiful, they are lovely people. So friendly in person,” Jimmy-James said after meeting his music heroes.
The members of Simple Plan were touched immensely by Jimmy-James’ story. “It’s touching. We’re happy to bring him a little bit of happiness by being able to do that for him. It warms our hearts,” shared Pierre Bouvier to Le Manic. According to Jeff Stinco “one of the roles of music is to accompany people in all moments of their lives,” adding that he was happy to know that his band’s music accompanied this boy during his and will continue doing so until the very end. And finally, Chuck Comeau concluded: “It makes me very humble to know the difference we’ve made for him. Experiencing this kind of situation helps us too and allows us to become better people.”
As his condition makes him suffer every day, he feels great pain both physically and mentally. Because of that Jimmy-James has made a personal decision to die of his own will and has requested medical assistance in dying on the day of his 22nd birthday on July 24th 2023. May the music follow him on!
