Marie: busy, talented, diversified and so much more

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.

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.

Pink-flowered Hedgehog 

Our Arizona residence for two weeks

Curve-billed Thrasher

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!

Northern Ontario, July 2018

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