Sailing Through Life
By: Barb Radu Sprenger
The unshakable bond between human spirits
A memoir
(Sample chapters below)
Description:
Con warned me on our third date that he planned to sail in his retirement; I fell hard for him anyway. Painfully, I’d learned the value of life when my first husband died suddenly, throwing me passionately into living now. In the blink of an eye, we’re tossing off the lines in Finland, and sailing into wild seas testing my courage. We’re grounded in an ebbing tide; hit by lightning at sea; jibed during colliding weather systems; slept soundly “on the hook” in hurricane conditions; fended off thieves in the middle of the night; and robbed in Russia. We’ve explored sites as old as dust; immerge into remote communities; sailed with dolphins and whales; and fallen in love with the people we’ve met along the way. My pinch-me world begins to crumble as I come to terms with the meaning of home, and family. Hooked on the magic of sailing through life, I’m working through my fears, but there’s one fear remaining that I’m not able to control. Life and death revisit my world, and fate plays the final card. I won't fall over from life's challenges, they infuse my spirit.
For Lindsey and Courtney
With special dedications
in memory of Larry Radu and Wilf Evans
and to Con who inspires me and whose love enriches my life!
Introduction
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
– Mark Twain
March 2007, our journey began. Con and I weren’t leaving Canada for another month, but the emotional journey was already in play. I carried thirty-six over-stuffed boxes down two flights of stairs to the basement. They held photo albums, dishes, my grandmother’s table cloth, treasured pieces of art and a binder of memories like hair clippings from my daughters’ first hair cuts and silly things they’d said over the years that I’d written down. I carried the other boxes down too, the ones Con had packed. They were filled with memories unfamiliar to me—from his past. Nevertheless, I’d itemized everything on a spread sheet. Using his sixty-one-year-old fit muscles, Con stacked them deep into the alcove under the stairs and drew a map so we’d know exactly where our absolutely-can’t-part-with stuff was strategically stored. What was once our wine cellar now held our larger items. Con hoisted the final piece, a Norwegian leather chair, easily over his head and upside down on top of the whole collection.
“Don’t sneeze, Con!” I was sure it would topple like a house of cards. Pushing the door closed, I heard the click. We did it. I wasn’t at all sure that we—or I could do it. I turned the key and fell back against the door with a deep exhale. Our 5,000-square-foot home, the place where Con and his ex-wife raised their two daughters and the place I’d called home for the last four years, was now empty, except for the two suitcases upstairs.
Last week, we had a major clean-out; a super garage sale and if it didn’t sell, we gave it away—couches, dining room sets, bedroom suites, computers, all my clothes; things we’d collected over our combined 113 years—the stuff that defined the “material” us. We even gave away Con’s 2005 Volvo and my 2007 XTrail. Anything else we owned was on its way to Big Sky, the place we’d call home for the next—I don’t know how many, years.
“If we’ve forgotten anything; we forfeit it,” I announced bravely, dropping the key into my back pocket.
“Okay by me.” Con pulled me into his chest, planting a sweaty kiss on my lips.
I was hooked on him and knew I’d follow him anywhere. Taking my final tour of the house, I saw the expensive baby-blue towels hanging in the main-floor bathroom. I’d just purchased them a few months ago, putting my last attempt at making Con’s house feel homey. I fingered their softness. “How relevant are you anyway,” I said out loud and checked my watch. Just a few more hours.
Life had been moving fast in the last few months—years. “Do you even know what you’re getting into, Barb?” I continued mumbling to myself when the door bell rang.
Courtney, my twenty-three-year-old daughter stood on the porch, her bare hands pushing down deep in the pockets of her over-sized hoodie. My eyes scanned her gym-toned body down to her snow-covered fluffy pink slippers and back into her delicate fresh face. Her long blond-streaked hair looked tousled, as if she’d just woken up. I looked around her to her jeep in the driveway. Scooping her into my arms, I pulled her in and closed the door. I hated that my first reaction when I saw her was always panic—so did she. She’d taken a number of tumbles in the last few years… life for her had been tough. I had been trying so hard to catch her before she fell that I was emotionally exhausted and wondered what a normal “hello” would feel like.
She slumped into my arms, not about to break away from the hug any time soon. After a while, I pulled her back and looked into her sad smoky-green eyes.
“Living on a boat, Mom?” She searched my face for response. “Is it what you want?”
Catching a Dream
“You gotta experience bad to appreciate good.”—Larry Radu
Larry, my late husband, used to say about the kids, “You can’t always shelter them, Barb, they sometimes need to experience bad things to appreciate and know what good is.”
It’s true, if life was always easy and good, how would you know how good good is if you’d never experienced bad. Feeling is part of the magic of living life; unfortunately, grief is a harsh reminder of it.
Just a few years ago, Larry and I had been totally absorbed in raising our two teenage daughters. Our house was always filled with young people, laughter, yummy smells from the creative, experimental cooking in the kitchen. We spent hours talking about what we’d do in our retirement. Usually, it was me talking and Larry nodding. “We’ll explore Mexico, Central America, South America… tuck into communities and get to know the people… I’ll teach English.” I’d found a perfect ocean-front property in Bucerias, a small town just north of Puerto Vallarta and fantasized about us living there.
He was happy to go along with my dream, rather than sort through his hobbies. “Plenty of time for that,” he’d say. But that summer, at forty-nine, he died suddenly and all our dreams ended.
When I met Con, he’d been separated for a year and was finalizing his divorce. He’d put his career into high gear and his company, Eagle Pump and Compressors, was experiencing fantastic growth. The possibility of winding down his thirty-one-year career and beginning his life-long dream—to buy a sailboat and sail in his retirement—was near. He told me about it on our third date, but I didn’t let the idea resonate too deeply. I casually pondered whether a person just unties from shore and lives on the water. I’d never met anyone who’d lived on a sailboat and didn’t invest much imagination; my emotional tank was already on over-drive.
“That’s different, sailing in your retirement… humph, the Big SIR.”
By our fourth date, I realized that he could practically taste the salty sea on his tongue and I figured our lives were out of sync. What an honourable guy for being up front with me—letting me know. I enjoyed our dates; they let me briefly escape my grief and the sadness and the pain I felt for my daughters. With him, I was happy.
One Saturday afternoon, he invited me to his house for dinner. “Upstairs Barb,” he called to me. “I just have a few emails to answer.”
His house was big. He’d converted one of the four, second-floor bedrooms into an office. On one of those walls was an enormous map of the world.
“I’ve been accepted as crew,” he said indifferently.
I ran my fingers lazily across the Pacific, feeling something – maybe happiness for him, because his dream was in its final incubation, about to hatch. “Sailing?” I said, hearing the energy zapped from my voice. I added in an overemphasized cheerfulness, “That’s great.” My head screamed, Good God Barb, it’s his life. Go get your own dream.
I sat at my computer the very next day and typed, Life Plan. Two years before, I’d written a business plan for Kids Up Front, a concept that had been presented to me on napkins in a coffee shop. It was now an extremely successful charity that I was running as the National Executive Director and had taken it across Canada. The business plan worked brilliantly then, why not for my life plan?
I stared at those two words for thirty-five minutes trying to identify my areas of interest. Who am I now? What do I want? What about my daughters? Will I be alone for the rest of my life? I closed the file. I had no idea what my passions were any more. My daughters needed me, I needed to build Kids Up Front and that was enough for now.
Con and I saw a lot of each other over the next few weeks but I hardly let his dream enter my head. I didn’t want to commit too much emotionally to him or anyone. In fact, the only reason I dated him was because he was “safe.” I knew him casually about eleven years before, so when he called I thought, why not rekindle a friendship.
It wasn’t that easy. I fell in love. Con’s a man of character, self assured and successful at everything he does.
Daily, I realized what kindred spirits we were, both loving tennis, skiing, gardening and could talk for hours about business and travel, or philosophising over the world’s curiosities. Sharing dinner one night, Con said in a matter-of-fact tone, “I may take a leave of absence from my business.” I was quiet. “I’ll likely take the captain up on his offer to help sail across the Atlantic…” I didn’t hear any more, my ears were ringing. I smiled and nodded as he spoke, realizing in that moment how being with him was easing me through my grief and just the thought of him not being in my life felt like salt being poured over my open wound.
Later that week, Con asked, “Why don’t you sign up for a sailing course at Glenmore Lake?” I felt my spirit awaken. “Be careful though, once you’re hooked, it gets in your blood.”
Con declined the offer with the captain and instead called me one afternoon when I was in Edmonton, setting up the groundwork to open the second Kids Up Front Foundation. “I’m not going,” he said evenly. I was selfishly overjoyed. “But, how would you like to be ‘skipper’ next weekend?”
He booked us on a flight to Vancouver and had chartered a 27-foot C&C sailboat. Leaving from False Creek, we sailed around the Gulf Islands. He was right; I was hooked. The next year, we chartered a 29-foot sailboat in Bodrum, Turkey, sailing in and out of the Greek islands and the Turkish mainland for two weeks. The year after, we were back in another charter sailing the Gulf Islands. Anchored in Pirates Cove, we watched the orange sunrays streak through misty cedars. It was magical. Long shadows mirrored images on the water. Letting darkness wrap around us, Con scooped up my hand and rubbed it nervously until it was nearly raw. I dropped my eyes to his anxious fingers, wondering what in the world was on his mind. Sitting forward, he opened his mouth to say something but stopped.
Finally he spoke, touching my ring finger, “I don’t have the hardware.” Hardware? I was confused until I peered deep into his eyes and saw an ocean of love. “Will you marry me Barb? I love you with all my heart.”
My body filled with a dizzying warm surge, “Yes! I love you more than you can imagine.”
Blissfully Ignorant Beginnings
“Down around the corner half a mile from here; see them both feet run and you watch them disappear; without love where would you be now…”—Doobie Brothers
The boat keys were bulging in Con’s pocket, the GPS was locked and loaded – tell me again, “yes, Big Sky is now ours.”
The female British-accented GPS voice called out directions to the Nauticat Yard and we obediently followed her in our rented Finnish car. Today, Big Sky was going on a road trip. The spring sunshine exploded through the windows, “It’s our song Con!”
We belted out, “Me and you and you and me, no matter how they tossed the dice it had to be… So happy together…, ba-ba ba…” rolling our windows up tight so nobody could hear. We wanted The Turtles song for our wedding song, but knew it was too dorky. Nevertheless, we crooned, “… I can see me lovin’ nobody but you--for all my life…”
Six months earlier, we’d flown to Finland and wrote up the deal on Big Sky. A few hours ago we touched down in Stockholm and climbed aboard a prop that took us to Turku, the home of Miikka Kipprusoff, the National Hockey League’s Calgary Flames’ star goalie.
“In thirty metres, turn r-eye-t,” sang the British voice. We fell silent.
“Okay, Con, she should be at the end of this street!” My eyes darted in every direction, “There!” I inhaled quickly, nearly choking. “It’s on the truck!” Con rolled up beside the truck and in one motion, I opened the door, jumped out and slammed it shut behind me. Con, much cooler, took his time getting out. Stretching, he casually dropped the car keys into his front pocket and sauntered over to Big Sky, running his fingers along her fibreglass.
“Hi, you must be Barb and Con Sprenger,” a man with a mop of blonde curls said to us in flawless English. “Come on this way, I’ll get Kai,” and he led us into the offices. I squeezed Con’s hand, feeling his excitement run through my palm.
He squeezed back.
Standing, a slim six feet and then some, Kai Gustafsson extended his right hand. Kai, the Nauticat owner and inventor was exactly as I remembered him, confident, elegant and friendly.
“Hi Kai,” we said in unison.”
“It’s good to see you again,” I added.
“Welcome back to Finland.”
Tuula, his pretty wife came up behind us, “Barb, Con!” she shot her hand out in front of her and with a we’ve-known-each-other-forever smile, “it’s good to see you both again. Welcome!”
“Big Sky will leave at nine o’clock,” Kai said. “Have you got everything you need?”
“We’re well taken care of Kai; just anxious to climb aboard.” Con’s words of appreciation were wrapped in exhilaration. “Anxious” was an understatement. He’d waited all his life for this.
“Big Sky will leave at nine o’clock.”
“You have a gem in that boat, you know… 15.1 metres, 27 tons; she’s been kept immaculately, here at the yard—and by the previous owner.” He spoke proudly, as if he’d just given birth to her—and metaphorically speaking, he did.
Due to some low underpasses, Big Sky was too big for us to take along the main highway. Instead we’d be travelling fifty kilometres to the sea on rural roads. At exactly nine o’clock, Big Sky was on the move. The truck turned from the rough road, bouncing slightly as it entered the secondary highway. I was tense. Con too. Five minutes down the road, just when I started to relax, the lead car turned off the road and into a parking lot.
“What’s this?” Con asked as the yard crew, consisting of eight big guys in bright orange coveralls marched with purpose into the mall. We tumbled out of our car and walked like speed walkers behind them. They squeezed into the stools at the coffee bar like giant pumpkins. It was nine fifteen—they were late for their morning coffee break. The Finns never miss it.
Fifteen minutes later, they were back on the road, zigzagging along the narrow route, stopping occasionally to twist out a street sign to squeeze through. Crossing the narrow bridge at a snail’s pace was taking longer than we could hold our breath. A thick northern mist filled the air as we drove through rain clouds. We saw the water straight ahead. Con stepped onto the pier, oblivious to the rain and watched our new home being lowered into the Baltic.
“Come on Barbie,” he stepped aboard extending his hand to me.
I pulled my jacket hood over my head, took a bottomless breath and stepped, landing deep into the cockpit.
Each step since Larry died had been a deep one. I leapt into a full-out, got-to-make-life-happen-now mode. When I fell in love with Con, I fell deeply—head over heels.
I sat on the wet cockpit seat watching Con fumble with the key chain in search of the key to open the door to our new life. Time had been racing by and now suddenly, it seemed to be slipping through my fingers, like sand through an hourglass. I missed my kids already!
“I know it’s here, just…” his laughter sounded like it was heading down an endless tunnel—a life-time away. Sweat covered my forehead through the rain. I sat still as my first panic attack took control of my body.
My jeans were completely soaked from the wet bench. The panic attack left and I felt lethargic and sick to my stomach. I didn’t move. Maybe this was the first time I’ve stopped moving since Larry’s death.
“Take y’r time.” I said. “We have the rest of our lives.”
Slumped on the wet cushion, I pondered the years since meeting Con. They had been filled with sadness and joy. I thought about how my life had molded into Con’s so easily and quickly. I had been working night and day in a job that I called “my passion,” building the Kids Up Front Foundation. For me the Kids Up Front concept had no boundaries. I left my corporate job in public affairs for Mobil Canada, hired Maureen, a dynamite program director and together, we impacted tens of thousands of kids in positive ways with our slogan, “If you can’t use your ticket; we can.” Canadian kids who would never before thought it possible were experiencing hockey, football and baseball games, theatre, opera, concerts, rodeos… I set a goal to take the concept into every major Canadian city and rural town, moving faster than the national board of directors could keep up and so often they put on the brakes.
Retiring at fifty-two, I didn’t complete my personal goal, but left with a great sense of pride and accomplishment.
“Ah… here it is.” Con gave a grand sweep with his arm, finally having found the right key. “After you my princess.”
I’ve worn plenty of hats in my past: Script Assistant—“Hey honey, book the psychic;” Film Editor and Camera Operator—“Pan left, sweetie;” and Broadcasting Sales—“How about we go for a drink princess, my wife’s out of town.” In the eighties, my career took on a new professional dimension in public affairs and communication for an international oil and gas corporation. It was a natural progression to package my skills for the National Executive Director position for the Kids Up Front Foundation. Now, it’s full circle, I’m Princess First Mate.
Standing in the centre of the pilot house, my senses reacquainted themselves with the boat that we fell in love with six months before.
I kissed the back of Con’s neck and went to the master bedroom to make up our bed. Our train to St. Petersburg, Russia was leaving in the morning, giving the yard guys five days to outfit the boat and check all the systems.
“Con, did you pack a flashlight for our midnight return from Russia?”
“Check.”
“Keys? —to get in the yard and our boat?”
“Check and check,” Con added.
“Let’s go. Oh, one last thing,” I turned and caressed his cheeks, “I love you. Pinch me, will you?”
That spring, when the Baltic thawed, we hoisted our sails, letting the cool breezes lure us to exotic places, satisfying and teasing our curiosities, not sure where we’d land.
“Grab on Con, this life we’re living is real!”
END OF SAMPLE
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By: Barb Radu Sprenger
The unshakable bond between human spirits
A memoir
(Sample chapters below)
Description:
Con warned me on our third date that he planned to sail in his retirement; I fell hard for him anyway. Painfully, I’d learned the value of life when my first husband died suddenly, throwing me passionately into living now. In the blink of an eye, we’re tossing off the lines in Finland, and sailing into wild seas testing my courage. We’re grounded in an ebbing tide; hit by lightning at sea; jibed during colliding weather systems; slept soundly “on the hook” in hurricane conditions; fended off thieves in the middle of the night; and robbed in Russia. We’ve explored sites as old as dust; immerge into remote communities; sailed with dolphins and whales; and fallen in love with the people we’ve met along the way. My pinch-me world begins to crumble as I come to terms with the meaning of home, and family. Hooked on the magic of sailing through life, I’m working through my fears, but there’s one fear remaining that I’m not able to control. Life and death revisit my world, and fate plays the final card. I won't fall over from life's challenges, they infuse my spirit.
For Lindsey and Courtney
With special dedications
in memory of Larry Radu and Wilf Evans
and to Con who inspires me and whose love enriches my life!
Introduction
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
– Mark Twain
March 2007, our journey began. Con and I weren’t leaving Canada for another month, but the emotional journey was already in play. I carried thirty-six over-stuffed boxes down two flights of stairs to the basement. They held photo albums, dishes, my grandmother’s table cloth, treasured pieces of art and a binder of memories like hair clippings from my daughters’ first hair cuts and silly things they’d said over the years that I’d written down. I carried the other boxes down too, the ones Con had packed. They were filled with memories unfamiliar to me—from his past. Nevertheless, I’d itemized everything on a spread sheet. Using his sixty-one-year-old fit muscles, Con stacked them deep into the alcove under the stairs and drew a map so we’d know exactly where our absolutely-can’t-part-with stuff was strategically stored. What was once our wine cellar now held our larger items. Con hoisted the final piece, a Norwegian leather chair, easily over his head and upside down on top of the whole collection.
“Don’t sneeze, Con!” I was sure it would topple like a house of cards. Pushing the door closed, I heard the click. We did it. I wasn’t at all sure that we—or I could do it. I turned the key and fell back against the door with a deep exhale. Our 5,000-square-foot home, the place where Con and his ex-wife raised their two daughters and the place I’d called home for the last four years, was now empty, except for the two suitcases upstairs.
Last week, we had a major clean-out; a super garage sale and if it didn’t sell, we gave it away—couches, dining room sets, bedroom suites, computers, all my clothes; things we’d collected over our combined 113 years—the stuff that defined the “material” us. We even gave away Con’s 2005 Volvo and my 2007 XTrail. Anything else we owned was on its way to Big Sky, the place we’d call home for the next—I don’t know how many, years.
“If we’ve forgotten anything; we forfeit it,” I announced bravely, dropping the key into my back pocket.
“Okay by me.” Con pulled me into his chest, planting a sweaty kiss on my lips.
I was hooked on him and knew I’d follow him anywhere. Taking my final tour of the house, I saw the expensive baby-blue towels hanging in the main-floor bathroom. I’d just purchased them a few months ago, putting my last attempt at making Con’s house feel homey. I fingered their softness. “How relevant are you anyway,” I said out loud and checked my watch. Just a few more hours.
Life had been moving fast in the last few months—years. “Do you even know what you’re getting into, Barb?” I continued mumbling to myself when the door bell rang.
Courtney, my twenty-three-year-old daughter stood on the porch, her bare hands pushing down deep in the pockets of her over-sized hoodie. My eyes scanned her gym-toned body down to her snow-covered fluffy pink slippers and back into her delicate fresh face. Her long blond-streaked hair looked tousled, as if she’d just woken up. I looked around her to her jeep in the driveway. Scooping her into my arms, I pulled her in and closed the door. I hated that my first reaction when I saw her was always panic—so did she. She’d taken a number of tumbles in the last few years… life for her had been tough. I had been trying so hard to catch her before she fell that I was emotionally exhausted and wondered what a normal “hello” would feel like.
She slumped into my arms, not about to break away from the hug any time soon. After a while, I pulled her back and looked into her sad smoky-green eyes.
“Living on a boat, Mom?” She searched my face for response. “Is it what you want?”
Catching a Dream
“You gotta experience bad to appreciate good.”—Larry Radu
Larry, my late husband, used to say about the kids, “You can’t always shelter them, Barb, they sometimes need to experience bad things to appreciate and know what good is.”
It’s true, if life was always easy and good, how would you know how good good is if you’d never experienced bad. Feeling is part of the magic of living life; unfortunately, grief is a harsh reminder of it.
Just a few years ago, Larry and I had been totally absorbed in raising our two teenage daughters. Our house was always filled with young people, laughter, yummy smells from the creative, experimental cooking in the kitchen. We spent hours talking about what we’d do in our retirement. Usually, it was me talking and Larry nodding. “We’ll explore Mexico, Central America, South America… tuck into communities and get to know the people… I’ll teach English.” I’d found a perfect ocean-front property in Bucerias, a small town just north of Puerto Vallarta and fantasized about us living there.
He was happy to go along with my dream, rather than sort through his hobbies. “Plenty of time for that,” he’d say. But that summer, at forty-nine, he died suddenly and all our dreams ended.
When I met Con, he’d been separated for a year and was finalizing his divorce. He’d put his career into high gear and his company, Eagle Pump and Compressors, was experiencing fantastic growth. The possibility of winding down his thirty-one-year career and beginning his life-long dream—to buy a sailboat and sail in his retirement—was near. He told me about it on our third date, but I didn’t let the idea resonate too deeply. I casually pondered whether a person just unties from shore and lives on the water. I’d never met anyone who’d lived on a sailboat and didn’t invest much imagination; my emotional tank was already on over-drive.
“That’s different, sailing in your retirement… humph, the Big SIR.”
By our fourth date, I realized that he could practically taste the salty sea on his tongue and I figured our lives were out of sync. What an honourable guy for being up front with me—letting me know. I enjoyed our dates; they let me briefly escape my grief and the sadness and the pain I felt for my daughters. With him, I was happy.
One Saturday afternoon, he invited me to his house for dinner. “Upstairs Barb,” he called to me. “I just have a few emails to answer.”
His house was big. He’d converted one of the four, second-floor bedrooms into an office. On one of those walls was an enormous map of the world.
“I’ve been accepted as crew,” he said indifferently.
I ran my fingers lazily across the Pacific, feeling something – maybe happiness for him, because his dream was in its final incubation, about to hatch. “Sailing?” I said, hearing the energy zapped from my voice. I added in an overemphasized cheerfulness, “That’s great.” My head screamed, Good God Barb, it’s his life. Go get your own dream.
I sat at my computer the very next day and typed, Life Plan. Two years before, I’d written a business plan for Kids Up Front, a concept that had been presented to me on napkins in a coffee shop. It was now an extremely successful charity that I was running as the National Executive Director and had taken it across Canada. The business plan worked brilliantly then, why not for my life plan?
I stared at those two words for thirty-five minutes trying to identify my areas of interest. Who am I now? What do I want? What about my daughters? Will I be alone for the rest of my life? I closed the file. I had no idea what my passions were any more. My daughters needed me, I needed to build Kids Up Front and that was enough for now.
Con and I saw a lot of each other over the next few weeks but I hardly let his dream enter my head. I didn’t want to commit too much emotionally to him or anyone. In fact, the only reason I dated him was because he was “safe.” I knew him casually about eleven years before, so when he called I thought, why not rekindle a friendship.
It wasn’t that easy. I fell in love. Con’s a man of character, self assured and successful at everything he does.
Daily, I realized what kindred spirits we were, both loving tennis, skiing, gardening and could talk for hours about business and travel, or philosophising over the world’s curiosities. Sharing dinner one night, Con said in a matter-of-fact tone, “I may take a leave of absence from my business.” I was quiet. “I’ll likely take the captain up on his offer to help sail across the Atlantic…” I didn’t hear any more, my ears were ringing. I smiled and nodded as he spoke, realizing in that moment how being with him was easing me through my grief and just the thought of him not being in my life felt like salt being poured over my open wound.
Later that week, Con asked, “Why don’t you sign up for a sailing course at Glenmore Lake?” I felt my spirit awaken. “Be careful though, once you’re hooked, it gets in your blood.”
Con declined the offer with the captain and instead called me one afternoon when I was in Edmonton, setting up the groundwork to open the second Kids Up Front Foundation. “I’m not going,” he said evenly. I was selfishly overjoyed. “But, how would you like to be ‘skipper’ next weekend?”
He booked us on a flight to Vancouver and had chartered a 27-foot C&C sailboat. Leaving from False Creek, we sailed around the Gulf Islands. He was right; I was hooked. The next year, we chartered a 29-foot sailboat in Bodrum, Turkey, sailing in and out of the Greek islands and the Turkish mainland for two weeks. The year after, we were back in another charter sailing the Gulf Islands. Anchored in Pirates Cove, we watched the orange sunrays streak through misty cedars. It was magical. Long shadows mirrored images on the water. Letting darkness wrap around us, Con scooped up my hand and rubbed it nervously until it was nearly raw. I dropped my eyes to his anxious fingers, wondering what in the world was on his mind. Sitting forward, he opened his mouth to say something but stopped.
Finally he spoke, touching my ring finger, “I don’t have the hardware.” Hardware? I was confused until I peered deep into his eyes and saw an ocean of love. “Will you marry me Barb? I love you with all my heart.”
My body filled with a dizzying warm surge, “Yes! I love you more than you can imagine.”
Blissfully Ignorant Beginnings
“Down around the corner half a mile from here; see them both feet run and you watch them disappear; without love where would you be now…”—Doobie Brothers
The boat keys were bulging in Con’s pocket, the GPS was locked and loaded – tell me again, “yes, Big Sky is now ours.”
The female British-accented GPS voice called out directions to the Nauticat Yard and we obediently followed her in our rented Finnish car. Today, Big Sky was going on a road trip. The spring sunshine exploded through the windows, “It’s our song Con!”
We belted out, “Me and you and you and me, no matter how they tossed the dice it had to be… So happy together…, ba-ba ba…” rolling our windows up tight so nobody could hear. We wanted The Turtles song for our wedding song, but knew it was too dorky. Nevertheless, we crooned, “… I can see me lovin’ nobody but you--for all my life…”
Six months earlier, we’d flown to Finland and wrote up the deal on Big Sky. A few hours ago we touched down in Stockholm and climbed aboard a prop that took us to Turku, the home of Miikka Kipprusoff, the National Hockey League’s Calgary Flames’ star goalie.
“In thirty metres, turn r-eye-t,” sang the British voice. We fell silent.
“Okay, Con, she should be at the end of this street!” My eyes darted in every direction, “There!” I inhaled quickly, nearly choking. “It’s on the truck!” Con rolled up beside the truck and in one motion, I opened the door, jumped out and slammed it shut behind me. Con, much cooler, took his time getting out. Stretching, he casually dropped the car keys into his front pocket and sauntered over to Big Sky, running his fingers along her fibreglass.
“Hi, you must be Barb and Con Sprenger,” a man with a mop of blonde curls said to us in flawless English. “Come on this way, I’ll get Kai,” and he led us into the offices. I squeezed Con’s hand, feeling his excitement run through my palm.
He squeezed back.
Standing, a slim six feet and then some, Kai Gustafsson extended his right hand. Kai, the Nauticat owner and inventor was exactly as I remembered him, confident, elegant and friendly.
“Hi Kai,” we said in unison.”
“It’s good to see you again,” I added.
“Welcome back to Finland.”
Tuula, his pretty wife came up behind us, “Barb, Con!” she shot her hand out in front of her and with a we’ve-known-each-other-forever smile, “it’s good to see you both again. Welcome!”
“Big Sky will leave at nine o’clock,” Kai said. “Have you got everything you need?”
“We’re well taken care of Kai; just anxious to climb aboard.” Con’s words of appreciation were wrapped in exhilaration. “Anxious” was an understatement. He’d waited all his life for this.
“Big Sky will leave at nine o’clock.”
“You have a gem in that boat, you know… 15.1 metres, 27 tons; she’s been kept immaculately, here at the yard—and by the previous owner.” He spoke proudly, as if he’d just given birth to her—and metaphorically speaking, he did.
Due to some low underpasses, Big Sky was too big for us to take along the main highway. Instead we’d be travelling fifty kilometres to the sea on rural roads. At exactly nine o’clock, Big Sky was on the move. The truck turned from the rough road, bouncing slightly as it entered the secondary highway. I was tense. Con too. Five minutes down the road, just when I started to relax, the lead car turned off the road and into a parking lot.
“What’s this?” Con asked as the yard crew, consisting of eight big guys in bright orange coveralls marched with purpose into the mall. We tumbled out of our car and walked like speed walkers behind them. They squeezed into the stools at the coffee bar like giant pumpkins. It was nine fifteen—they were late for their morning coffee break. The Finns never miss it.
Fifteen minutes later, they were back on the road, zigzagging along the narrow route, stopping occasionally to twist out a street sign to squeeze through. Crossing the narrow bridge at a snail’s pace was taking longer than we could hold our breath. A thick northern mist filled the air as we drove through rain clouds. We saw the water straight ahead. Con stepped onto the pier, oblivious to the rain and watched our new home being lowered into the Baltic.
“Come on Barbie,” he stepped aboard extending his hand to me.
I pulled my jacket hood over my head, took a bottomless breath and stepped, landing deep into the cockpit.
Each step since Larry died had been a deep one. I leapt into a full-out, got-to-make-life-happen-now mode. When I fell in love with Con, I fell deeply—head over heels.
I sat on the wet cockpit seat watching Con fumble with the key chain in search of the key to open the door to our new life. Time had been racing by and now suddenly, it seemed to be slipping through my fingers, like sand through an hourglass. I missed my kids already!
“I know it’s here, just…” his laughter sounded like it was heading down an endless tunnel—a life-time away. Sweat covered my forehead through the rain. I sat still as my first panic attack took control of my body.
My jeans were completely soaked from the wet bench. The panic attack left and I felt lethargic and sick to my stomach. I didn’t move. Maybe this was the first time I’ve stopped moving since Larry’s death.
“Take y’r time.” I said. “We have the rest of our lives.”
Slumped on the wet cushion, I pondered the years since meeting Con. They had been filled with sadness and joy. I thought about how my life had molded into Con’s so easily and quickly. I had been working night and day in a job that I called “my passion,” building the Kids Up Front Foundation. For me the Kids Up Front concept had no boundaries. I left my corporate job in public affairs for Mobil Canada, hired Maureen, a dynamite program director and together, we impacted tens of thousands of kids in positive ways with our slogan, “If you can’t use your ticket; we can.” Canadian kids who would never before thought it possible were experiencing hockey, football and baseball games, theatre, opera, concerts, rodeos… I set a goal to take the concept into every major Canadian city and rural town, moving faster than the national board of directors could keep up and so often they put on the brakes.
Retiring at fifty-two, I didn’t complete my personal goal, but left with a great sense of pride and accomplishment.
“Ah… here it is.” Con gave a grand sweep with his arm, finally having found the right key. “After you my princess.”
I’ve worn plenty of hats in my past: Script Assistant—“Hey honey, book the psychic;” Film Editor and Camera Operator—“Pan left, sweetie;” and Broadcasting Sales—“How about we go for a drink princess, my wife’s out of town.” In the eighties, my career took on a new professional dimension in public affairs and communication for an international oil and gas corporation. It was a natural progression to package my skills for the National Executive Director position for the Kids Up Front Foundation. Now, it’s full circle, I’m Princess First Mate.
Standing in the centre of the pilot house, my senses reacquainted themselves with the boat that we fell in love with six months before.
I kissed the back of Con’s neck and went to the master bedroom to make up our bed. Our train to St. Petersburg, Russia was leaving in the morning, giving the yard guys five days to outfit the boat and check all the systems.
“Con, did you pack a flashlight for our midnight return from Russia?”
“Check.”
“Keys? —to get in the yard and our boat?”
“Check and check,” Con added.
“Let’s go. Oh, one last thing,” I turned and caressed his cheeks, “I love you. Pinch me, will you?”
That spring, when the Baltic thawed, we hoisted our sails, letting the cool breezes lure us to exotic places, satisfying and teasing our curiosities, not sure where we’d land.
“Grab on Con, this life we’re living is real!”
END OF SAMPLE
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