Twenty-Eight Years On

I am a lucky guy.  The reason I am a lucky guy is that, 28 years ago, I met the woman who would change my life. It was not a great time of my life and I was licking my wounds from a failed relationship and, before that, a failed marriage. I had my career but in the back of my mind there was a little voice telling me that I was a fraud and that any day I might be discovered. 

I was getting used to the idea that I would be spending the rest of my life alone when, out of the blue, I received a marriage proposal. It was all in fun of course, but I knew enough about the person making the proposal that there was something serious behind it. And so I played along and we had fun playing with the idea that we might get engaged.

We had a dinner date and - yadda yadda yadda - a few days later I ended up giving her a key to my house.

There were a few complications, the main one being that we lived in two different cities. But without figuring out where we would live, eight weeks later we were married. It was Remembrance Day 1992.

Our Wedding Day - November 11, 1992

Those eight weeks were certainly intense but somehow it was all natural and easy at the same time. Somehow I knew that she would never be different from the loving, empathetic person she seemed to be. But as I got to know her I realized her depths. I realized that there was something very unusual in her character. She had intuitions that could not be explained. It was as if she knew me from the inside out, and that the mysterious outward face I thought I presented to the world was, to her, as transparent as glass.

I knew that she would always be on my side.   I knew that she already knew the worst about me and accepted me as I was nonetheless. A mutual friend had warned her to stay away from me but she chose to trust her heart and her instincts. I knew that her love was real and eternal.

We watched the World Series.  It was the year the the Blue Jays won their first championship. In my smoky Toronto living room we watched Twin Peaks and ate Chinese food from my favorite Chinese restaurant. We went for long walks along the boardwalk in Toronto and we spent weekends in her condo in Ottawa waking up whenever we pleased and listening to Keith Richards.

We got married at Osgoode Hall in Toronto with my good friend Mr. Justice Roy McMurtry presiding. I had called him up to tell him I was engaged and to ask him to perform the ceremony. He said, as he had said before when I worked with him, that all I had to do was write up the script and he would be happy to deliver it. 

My mother was there and she was thrilled how about the woman I had found. I think she loved my wife from the first moment they met. And it was mutual. We had a few other witnesses to the wedding and it was small and perfect.

It was all so easy, natural and perfect.  It wasn't until later, after a short honeymoon, that it occurred to me that perhaps we might have acted in haste and that it was somewhat odd to marry someone who had been a total stranger a few weeks earlier. As I recall, though, I had no doubts. I knew exactly who I was marrying and the quality of that person. And I knew my own heart.

And, I can say that 28 years ago to the day I have never had a doubt and my intuition proved to be perfectly accurate. That is not to say that we don't occasionally disagree about something or other. We are two strong-willed and even stubborn people. We have strong egos and strong opinions. But nothing will ever get between us and nothing can shake our faith in each other and our love for each other or our shared love for our son Andrew, our daughter Jenelle and granddaughters Kngaio and Ideya.

In sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, and to the end of our days, I will love you, Angelina,