Valentine’s Day in the Business World

How does one write a Valentine’s card in a business and professional blog? Well, in my case, it’s easy.

I had no idea, one sweltering summer day in a little rural town in Eastern Ontario, that I was about to become the luckiest man in the world. My dear young bride had no idea what kind of wild gig she was signing up for, nor frankly did I. But here we are nearly fifty-three years and four kids later, still married, and looking for more adventures.

Karen took all that “for better or worse, for richer or poorer” stuff very seriously. She actually meant it, and still does. Hopefully the “poorer” part is mostly behind us, but we continue to adventure together.

A watershed moment came when we’d been married about five or six years. Karen worked in the federal government and I was then teaching school. I was well placed, loved my work, had finished my first degree by virtue of night and summer school, and was firmly on “principal track”. But then an old dream resurfaced: I’d always wanted to be a lawyer, to make a difference, differently. I told Karen, and she said, “Well, you’ll never know until you give it a try.” Just like that.

We knew that it meant cashing in ten years’ of retirement funds, remortgaging the house, putting off starting a family, and five years of “nose to the grindstone”, followed by an uncertain future in new territory. Karen said simply, “If that’s where your heart is, we need to do it.” No hesitation, no qualification.

It’s been a tougher slog than we had imagined, but a good one. About ten years into the practice, Karen left the government and stepped into her role as office manager, accountant, law clerk, quality-control officer, and as the practice grew and we added to our numbers, “office mom”. To most clients, she was the true face of the firm.

Over the years the law practice had its ups and its downs in about equal measure, but there was always one constant, one firewall, one conscience, one quiet and unstoppable force, and her name was Karen.

I wish for you that you have somebody just like that. And if you do, tell them!