Chapter One:

Young Love

         I am from a city about one hour north of Toronto, Ontario called Barrie.  I went to Barrie North Collegiate high school and played football and rugby there.  When I was in Grade 11 a friend from the football team helped me to get a job at the Wal-Mart where a lot of the team worked.  His mom worked in the personnel office and was happy to use that position to bring in football jocks because frankly it was a pretty good source of manual labour.  It’s worth mentioning right away that I never saw myself as a jock.  Deep down I was a nerd but had fought a great deal to shed that stigma as I had moved into high school.  I was always very proud of being a closet nerd especially when my efforts led to becoming team Captain.  Before I begin the story of my life I will say finally that I am a very introspective person and someone who believes that things happen for a reason and that some things are meant to be.  This will become clear as the story unfolds but for me that first shift in the cool October of 2000 is one day that would have lasting effects that would go to completely change the course of my entire life.

I was nervous that first day because I hadn’t had a real job before.  My Mom had lined me up with a small job working at The Scout Shop, selling gear to members of Scouts Canada, which I had ben a part of since I was 6.  It was very much a starter job, only about one or two shifts a week and in a small location.  Wal-Mart was a proper store.  I had applied to work there to get some extra money for music equipment and because I was getting older and wanted to have more to spread around.  

My first day was October 5th, 2000.  They told me that I would be working in the Seasonal Department as a temp worker to fill the holidays and that if I worked hard they could keep me on.  I was excited because I would earn better money and because there was already a lot of people that I knew working there.  As I said it was very much one of the spots that a lot of the football team worked.  My manager, Bob, spoke about the area that he was in charge of and showed me the way to the back corner of the store where I would meet some of my coworkers.  My friend Matt, whose mom got me the job, worked in the Sporting Goods department next to Seasonal, so it was nice to have a familiar face in the area.  

Eventually we walked out to the centre aisle where the Seasonal and Pet departments merged with Toys on the other side.  There were two girls there, a blonde and a brunette.  They both had their vests on and were tossing large rubber bouncy balls into a holder in the centre of the aisle.  The blonde spoke first. “Hey! I’m Kim.  I work over in Toys.  You’re the new victim eh?” she said with a sort of sarcastic tone in her voice.  I sheepishly agreed.  I wasn’t a very confident guy and she was a very direct 19-year old.  “Well if you’re in Seasonal you should probably go learn to catch fish because that is one of the main jobs you will be doing since you are right next door and I am totally over it” she said with a smile.  She turned and gestured to the other girl who was tossing the last of the balls into the holder.  She was cute, wearing all black with her blue vest over top with round glasses and her hair stretched back into a ponytail.  “That’s Stephanie, she’ll show you how to get them.”

Stephanie smiled with a kind of smirk on her face and held out her hand.  I shook it and smiled.  She had beautiful eyes that twinkled with a look like she knew something I didn’t.  We talked as we made our way to the fish tanks.  I told her about how I was on the football team with Matt and that his mom was in personnel and had hooked me up with the job, and that I hoped to get hired on in the new year.  As we got to the tanks she walked me through the steps to catch fish and bag them for customers with the right tags.  She showed me how to clean the tanks too before we walked over to Seasonal so she could show me around the area.  She told about the job and a bit about herself.  It turned out that we went to the same high school but had never seen one another before and clearly ran in very different crowds.  It didn’t matter to me because I despised cliques after spending most of my time in elementary school being bullied for liking Star Trek.  I generally got along with most people, so it was nice just to meet a new friend.  After about an hour of getting to know one another Steph was called back to Pets and I started working on some of the jobs that Bob had left me with.  

        At the end of the night I was punching out and getting ready to walk home and Steph came up beside me.  She asked how the rest of my night went and we walked out together.  I told her a bit about myself, my family, my brothers.  She knew my older brother, Michael, since they were in same grade and she had clashed a bit with some of the people he hung out with and it was clear that she was a bit apprehensive about it.  It didn’t bother her that much though because she offered me a ride home.  It was nice because I was still too young to drive and didn’t have much of a taste for it after I had been hit by a car and nearly killed a few years earlier, so I graciously accepted her offer.

We walked out of the store and continued to get to know one another and eventually walked up to a white car with a black cover on the front of the hood and got in.  I told her where I lived, and we pulled away.  She gestured as we drove out of the lot to the neighbourhood behind the store and told me that she lived just back there.  It was kind of cool that we lived so close together.  We continued to make small talk as we made our way to my house.  It was weird to be alone in a car with a girl, it was actually my first time since at that age I was very much used to only riding around with my parents and, on occasion, my brother.  I looked over at Steph while we chatted and came to my driveway.  

She was nice.  I liked her, and I was happy that we would be working together and be right next to each other in the store.  She told me that I could get a ride home any other time that we work together so it was all good.  That made me happy; she was easy to talk to.  I stepped out of the car and walked up into my house.  My mom was waiting up when I came home because she was worried with it being my first day at the store and my first night walking home alone.  She asked me how I had gotten home so fast and I told her that I had met a girl at work who had a car and offered to give me a ride.  My Mom started to laugh and poke at me.  “Oh, getting rides home with girls now are we?” she said with a facetious look on her face.  I reacted as any 16-year old would and told her to stop as I made my way to my room and went to bed for the night.  I had brushed mom off, but she did give me the thought about how it could turn into something.  I shook my head and fell asleep. I didn’t know it at the time, but my life had completely changed that day because just five years later, almost to the day, Stephanie would become my wife.

        As the weeks pushed on and we worked more and shifts together I came to know Stephanie pretty well.  She gave me rides more and more often and we grew to become decent friends.  It was around then that my friend Matt told me that he happened to know that she was into me.  I was still a very immature kid, so I didn’t know how to process something like that because I had wanted to be with girls for a long time, but they were never into me.  I certainly didn’t know how to process being the object of a crush because I had so little self-confidence.  I remember that I saw her differently after that though and tried to imagine what being with her would be like.  I didn’t know about a relationship though.  I was still growing up and she was older, I didn’t know how to process the feelings, so I figured I would just play it cool and see how it went.  

It was in that period of unsureness that I was ambushed one day by another girl that worked at the store who had Steph in tow.  She got right in my face and launched into me immediately: “so Steve, when are you going to stop being a bitch and take Steph out?” she asked with an obnoxious, almost valley-girl tone.  I remember being so shocked to be hit with it all so suddenly and directly that I looked to Steph for some idea of what to do.  I still remember seeing how sheepish Stephanie looked; she was clearly embarrassed and desperate for me to say the right thing, but I didn’t know what to say.  Natalie did all the talking and played her off as her sad friend.  I still just didn’t see Stephanie that way and felt very pressured.  The only reason I didn’t say yes right then was that I really didn’t know her well enough and I didn’t want another two-week “relationship” that would get awkward and I didn’t want to lose the dynamic that we had developed over the month or so we had been working together.  I also despised Natalie and her pressure made me very uncomfortable and made things between Steph and I awkward anyway.  I think that if it had come up just between us during a drive home or something I would have gone out with her in a heartbeat.  I just said I needed to think and Natalie kept hounding, “what’s there to think about?  Quit being a little pussy,” she said in that same ditzy tone that grated me.  She was clearly frustrated and ended up walking off in a huff.  I still remember how sad Stephanie looking as they walked away.  There was something in her eyes that ate at me and I felt horrible.  I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I just tried to ignore it.  The next week Stephanie transferred to Sports and started to work during the day so we didn’t really see each other any more or even really speak all that often.  There was some banter still here and there, but it wasn’t nearly as flirtatious or fun as it had been when she was working in Pets.  

        Almost a full year later a mutual friend tipped me off to the fact that Steph thought that I hated her.  It was much later in the year, but it really bothered me.  I still thought of her as a friend and I still remembered and thought of that day and the sad expression that she had carried with her when she walked off with Natalie.  I went to the store for work and saw that she was there.  I confronted her and told her about what I had been told and that it had really bothered me, and I wanted to talk about it.  Despite not seeing her for a year I really wanted her to know that it wasn’t true and that it was just that our schedules were opposed and we simply didn’t see one another.  I wanted to talk to her about the incident with Natalie since that was the last time that I had seen her outside of the occasional pleasantries around the punch clock, but I didn’t know what to say so I figured I would just plod on.  After that things were less awkward, but she was seeing someone, so it wasn’t like we were suddenly going to go out, but it did feel nice to know that we were back to neutral.

        That neutrality remained for another year when our plot would thicken.  By then Stephanie had been dumped and was newly single and I, after months of obsessing over a girl that I had been trapped in the ‘friend zone’ with, had been broken up with before we even started.  It was heartbreaking and not knowing where to turn I spoke about it with a woman who had started to work in the Sports Department named Katherine, who had established herself as a mother-figure among my teammates who still filled the store’s ranks.  As it turned out, Stephanie had also vented to her and confided in her about the crush that she had on me and when I later told Katherine that I was just ready to move on and find someone else she told me that I needed to talk to Steph and sort that out.  I was surprised, not because she liked me but because she STILL liked me after I had been such an asshole two-years before.  I still knew that she was a cool person and began thinking that I really should try to see what would happen.  

A few days later I ran into Stephanie and we both awkwardly acknowledged the talks with Katherine, and she offered to give me a ride home so we would have a chance to speak.  We talked as she drove, and I told her about how I would love to try a date and see if something could happen between us.  We exchanged numbers.  I remember shaking a bit in the seat next to her.  I wanted to give her a kiss to solidify the plans, but I was scared to death because a two-year friendship and a budding relationship had ended with a single kiss earlier that summer.  I had been terrified after that to open up to people, especially women, because I was afraid that if I opened myself up to them that I would end up alone with my heart ripped out.  I hadn’t kissed anyone since and was afraid that if I weirded Steph out it would be over before it started too so I leaned in for a hug and mustered what I had and kissed her on the cheek.  She didn’t freak out, so I counted my lucky stars.    

A few days later she gave me another ride and we decided on a date.  I was excited but overwrought.  As we pulled up to my house I knew I had to put up or shut up.  After a brief silence, I leaned in and kissed her lips and thanked her for the ride.  As I sat back in my seat she looked disappointed.  I asked her what was wrong and was terrified that I had overstepped my bounds but was shocked when she blurted out “that’s it?”  I was confused, but in my confusion, she grabbed my head and gave me a proper kiss.  It was October 1st.  We had a date planned for a few days later but we still count the 1st of October as the start of our dating relationship.  Soon we had our first date, almost to the day two years after meeting on my first day of work and our relationship blossomed as we fulfilled every cliché of teenage love.  

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        After nearly a year of dating I had to go away to Ottawa for university.  We decided we would stay together through it and would talk and put in the work to stay together.  By then I was deeply in love with her.  I was pretty sure that I wanted to marry her but was still very young, so it was not very close to the forefront of my mind.  The last night we spent together before I left we stayed overnight in a hotel, we ordered our favourite food from our favourite restaurant and just stayed with each other.  She drove me home in the morning.  We stood at the end of my driveway and hugged.  Stephanie’s face was purple, and she was so sad and crying so hard that her glasses fogged up.  We kissed and we cried there together, and we moved away from each other and waved one last time as she pulled away.  It was the first time that we would say goodbye for a long separation, but it would be far from the last.

        I attended Carleton University where I declared a double major in History and English and a minor in Classics.  I took several other classes as well because my program allowed for a lot of electives.  My Classics minor came from my wanting to learn Ancient Greek so I could translate the works that I came to love in my last year of high school.  I ended up taking it for three years and decided to fill out the other few classes that I needed to satisfy the minor.  

My first year saw a lot of growth and a lot of change but I remained committed to Stephanie and we saw each other when we could and talked on the phone every night.  By the end of the year I was positive that I wanted to marry her and over that summer while myself and my old room mate were in town searching for an apartment to share in our Second Year, I bought her a five-hundred-dollar engagement ring that I saved up for with my summer job back at Wal-Mart and decided that I would propose to her on Canada Day so I would always remember my anniversary.  I wished so badly that I could get her a nicer and more expensive ring because I felt she deserved one, but I also thought that in the end it wouldn’t be the ring that mattered it was that I let her know that I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life.

        I was nervous when the big day came.  We had discussed going downtown to celebrate and to join the festivals that Barrie hosted then and I had a big plan worked out.  There was a gazebo at the far end of the waterfront.  We would walk along the beach and listen to the waves breaking on the rocks.  I wanted to talk to her about how much she meant to me and there in the gazebo I would ask her.  I was pretty sure she would say yes but was nonetheless shaking with anticipation.  As we walked I tried to think of what I wanted to say when we got down there.  I was so nervous that it took almost everything I had to keep my hands from shaking.  I kept losing my train of thought though because Steph kept complaining that her feet hurt and that she was tired and didn’t feel like walking any more.  I kept trying to get her going but had no real reason why we had to keep plodding on.  It was clearly frustrating her a great deal because she was getting less patient, but I was getting more and more irritated and was shouting inside my own head: “Stephanie, stop complaining, just come with me and let me propose to you!”

In the end I realized that there was no way I would be able to keep this thing going the entire way to the gazebo, so we stopped and moved to a sandy patch near some beach volleyball players.  We sat down and Steph resting her head on my lap.  I hugged her and tried desperately to think of something slick to say but I had been interrupted so many times that I hadn’t really formed a cogent thought and all the things I had daydreamed of saying when I got the ring to begin with flew right out of my head.  I couldn’t be suave, I was scared to death and doing it live.  I hugged her close and just gave up and mustered what I had to say the words: “Stephanie, I love you more than anything.  Will you marry me?”  She sat up suddenly and started to cry instantly saying “what?” over and over with desperation in her voice.  I repeated myself: “will you marry me?” while I struggled to pull the ring out from the side pocket of my cargo shorts.  She was utterly shocked and continued to cry but shouted out “YES! Oh my God yes!”  She looked down with a big smile through the red of her face and stared at the diamond that glinted in the summer sun.  I pushed it onto her finger and held her hand and we kissed, and she laughed out with joy and smiled the biggest smile I have ever seen.  We looked over and a few people nearby had seen it and shouted out “congrats!”  We smiled, thanked them, stood up, and started to walk back.  Steph stared at her hand as we moved and asked me all kinds of questions: “how did you afford a ring? Where is it from?  Who knows?”  I tried to answer her but stammered through the changing responses that were hard to keep straight.  In the end I was just so happy because she had said ‘yes.’  We kept on down the boardwalk together, engaged.

        Soon after that I was back to school and living in my apartment.  I carried on with my studies and myself and my roommate, Sohel, hung out and had some good times together.  I stayed in touch with Stephanie and was able to see her more than when I was in residence, which was nice.  We both plugged away on our respective courses and studies and discussed wedding plans.  Steph was pretty spun up but then she was known to get that way sometimes because she was a deeply committed woman.  There is very little grey area with her with high peaks and low valleys on the spectrum of her emotions.  She would throw herself completely into things most of the time to manage her stress.  Thankfully she would adapt later since this way of coping would not be good when I was in the Navy, but for our wedding she was very stressed about all the little details and using it to fill the time that she missed me.  By the time Christmas rolled around Sohel, my roommate, had dropped out of school and moved back to Toronto.  I stayed in the apartment so that Steph and I could live together there when she finished college that summer.  

        For four months I lived alone.  I left to go to class, but I didn’t have many friends.  I did have quality friends though since it was then that I met my friend John who would go on to be Godfather to both of my children.  In general, I was very lonely and spent my days in quiet pot-fuelled introspection.  I would read books for my classes and listen to music and think.  I feel like it was during this period that I made the transition from being a boyfriend and a high school kid to becoming a married man and have responsibilities as a provider for a family.  I nested, put most of my stuff away and tried to set up a home for Steph to move into.  In May she moved in and we started our lives together in Ottawa.  We both worked for Wal Mart in the southern part of the city and Steph decided, when she was totally unable to find work in her field, to go to Carleton as well to study mass communications and tie it to the work she had done with Graphic Design in college.  So, with that we became university students together.  Living together was easy.  I remember seeing all these things in shows and movies that prattle on about how hard it is to live with someone, but I didn’t get it.  There were challenges and adjustments to make for sure as we came to know one another on a whole new level but really we were best friends so they were minor and we lived there and kept planning away at the wedding.  

        In the fall the big day came, October 1st.  Our three-year anniversary of the day that she had decided to make out with me when I was afraid a peck had crossed the line and ostensibly of our first date.  I was nervous.  Not to be married, that wasn’t even a consideration, it was more just the actual process of the speeches and the ceremonies and the fruition of all the plans, the stress, the choices, the budget working, the tears, the joy and the love.  It all came to this great head of a wonderful day.  We were married outside.  It had rained for a week straight, but despite having a back up plan, in among days and days of drizzle and cold our wedding day came and it was probably the nicest day possible for an outdoor wedding.  It was about 14 degrees out and sunny, cool enough that being out in a suit was very comfortable under a sun that still carried the last remnants of the summer just to shine them on us that day.  

I waited at the head of the aisle, my brothers and friends next to me and waited for Stephanie to come out.  I thought about our lives together.  About the first day we met when she taught me how to catch fish, how I had rejected her because of Natalie but she still liked me, about the day that she saved me with a kiss, of living off Kraft dinner and hot dogs, of watching our shows and movies together and discovering our love that was still solid despite 16 months apart in our first 3 years.  I thought of her face and imagined what she would look like when the music came on and I saw her walk out.  

When she came out it was like the sun shone brighter with her under it; she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.  I watched her cry just a bit as she made her way down the aisle of standing guests, looking at me and smiling through her tears that glinted in the afternoon sun.  It was magical.  I fought to keep myself together but could feel my love and the power of the moment building from deep inside me from seeing my beautiful bride, my best friend, my love, radiant and joyous.  People sat, and the ceremony continued.  We considered writing our own vows but were also suckers for tradition, so we decided that we would use the traditional vows.  Thinking back on that day when I look at the pictures of us I see two kids who were so brave to face the world together, completely unaware of the story that was in front of them.  I remember saying the words and thinking I knew what they meant: “better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.”  I may have been clueless but when I said them I meant them.  I have only taken two true oaths in my life.  The first was that day, under the glorious October sun in Barrie where I swore before God and everyone that I would love and cherish Stephanie no matter what would come at us, and she did the same.  We sealed the agreement with rings and a kiss and partied the night away.  Soon we were back in Ottawa and continuing to be poor students.  A few years later I would go on to take my second oath: to protect and defend my country as an officer in the Canadian Armed Forces.