To Know What’s Coming Ahead by Renee

To Know What’s Coming Ahead by Renee - September 2022 Scholarship Essay

I have always been exceptional, however, not just in how mothers talk on the telephone to their relatives and brag about their amazing kids, but more in the way that if the Universe had a vendetta… it would be against me. In hindsight, young Renee Dansereau had no idea what was about to come in her life.
At first, it would be simple: a seemingly happy family that was broken on the inside. An alcoholic father who was absent, a mother who had cancer, and yet the smiles still bloomed on the outside of the family’s faces. However, it just kept getting more complicated… it was one tragedy after another. It started with the mother as she died from cancer, and the father gained custody of her two children. Then the walls began to tumble and with the mother gone, the world started to collapse. Progressing forward, the maternal grandfather died, then the only aunt, then the other grandfather... all whilst the world was locked away due to covid.
However, despite these challenges, the young Renee Dansereau carried on. She treaded water when she could have drowned, she was compassionate despite her own battles, and she survived through what she thought was impossible. I am proud to have once been that scared little girl, and to her I would say: “be resilient, be kind, but most importantly, be unapologetically yourself. There is only one chance at life, so go out and live it. You will fall, you will question everything around you, and the world will seem as if it is crumbling beneath you, but you are more than that. I don’t know why, and we will never know why, we were chosen for this life, but you will not just pass by. You will exceed, you will see every sunrise and sunset as a new beginning, a new dawn, and you must grasp it whenever given the chance. I love you… I love us… and it will be okay.”