Marie has been, and still is, an incredible blessing for me. I am still
amazed that God had her available to be my wife and best friend! An earlier
blog post entitled Leaving the Nest describes some of the background of
how that unfolded.
Marie wanted to be a financial counselor upon graduation, but there
weren’t too many opportunities when we got married and moved to the backwoods
of the Rondeau Provincial Park area! So she adjusted to the circumstances as they became available,
or which she pursued. She definitely wasn’t going to just sit around. As well,
she had lots of great ideas on how to make a house a home, and that continued
wherever we moved to. I still enjoy the creative and personal touches she put around the home we moved to in Chatham.
She wanted to keep busy and contribute to our marriage right from the
beginning, in various ways, doing quite a variety of things over the years. One
of her earliest jobs was to be a server at a cafeteria at Swain’s greenhouse in
the village of Eagle, a few kilometres east of Rondeau.
A bit later she was a residential life counselor at South Western Regional
Centre, west of Blenheim...
...which eventually became being a counselor at a home in Blenheim, for
residents that didn’t require SWRC residential needs.
She was involved with Right-to-Life Kent for several years, including
being president. This was all before kids came along. As she enjoyed writing, she
produced a few columns on behalf of R-T-L.
She was active on the search for adopting, since we weren’t having kids
the biological way. The adoption agency we worked with most closely was a
Christian organization, Jewels For Jesus, in Mississauga. Over the course of
several years, which resulted in the adoption of our first child, Tim in 1986,
Marie wrote at least a couple of well-received articles for their newsletter,
and she received acclaim for her articles from people she didn’t even know. She
was also involved with the local Children’s Aid Society, eventually becoming a
board member.
When kids came along, with a second child, Kristin, arriving in 1993, of
course our lives were changed for great reasons!
And it changed our focus on life, especially
for Marie. She had always had an interest in sewing, even back in to her teen
years. For example she created her go-away outfit for heading off to our
honeymoon, as well as a few other things after we were married. Macrame was also
an interest, and she designed a few things, some of which are still around.
And she created a few things for our children, of course, including this little rascal:
In the later 1990s, she took a new career on: she became a manager for
Jocus, a company that specialized in distributing children’s toys. She even opened
a store in a Chatham mall, with a friend, to showcase and sell many toys, as
well as presenting the array of Jocus products in people’s homes. Most were
done locally, but on one occasion she and I traveled to Pelee Island where a
friend lived, that enabled many Pelee Island residents an opportunity to purchase
children’s toys, etc., for Christmas without having to leave the island.
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| Her well-worn business hat |
She enjoyed traveling, exploring and camping along the way, which we did
a lot of over the years and have been featured in previous posts. The first photo shows Marie and Tim jumping off an upper ridge of sand at Great Sand Dunes NP with the second photo showing the campsite that Marie and I had at Great Sand Dunes NP in an earlier visit.
Of course she enjoyed playing with the kids wherever we were. The first photo is of Kristin blowing bubbles in August, 1997.
This next photo is quite a bit earlier, when Marie and Tim were enjoying the boardwalk view over the sloughs of Rondeau's Tulip Tree Trail.
Marie knew how to make a house a home, and was always coming up with some
artistic results, including some paintings....
....and producing lots of things in various sketch books.
This next one is when she was out at the Erieau beach with one or more of the kids, and was 'drawn' to this Afghan hound in the vicinity.
At one point in the late ‘90s or early ‘00s, she investigated Theophostic
Ministry training, and was successful in being recognized as having fulfilled the
requirements. This training was to participate in the inner healing movement to
help victims of various causes of trauma and emphasizes replacing lies
experienced during traumatic events with divine healing from God.
Just after my retirement, she arranged the details to rent a nice house
in the Sonoran Desert of Arizona to enjoy some desert atmosphere, birds, cacti
and rest and relaxation. More details of that wonderful time are in an earlier Life Is A Journey post.
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| Pink-flowered Hedgehog |
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| Our Arizona residence for two weeks |
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| Curve-billed Thrasher |
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Gambel's Quail |
Marie was everything I could have hoped for as a spouse, a best friend,
and so much more! Such a sweet, thoughtful, caring, loving, non-judgmental, fun,
creative, gentle, etc., etc. person! Thank-you Lord!!! I most certainly miss her, but I thank-you for rescuing her from all of the struggles she was faced with in her early years, and helping me to have a much better understanding of them, so maybe I can help someone else.
The flame of love You
inspired in me for Marie so many years ago continues, and this verse is absolutely true!
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| Northern Ontario, July 2018 |
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