OUR STORY – CHAPTER 11

“Don’t be ashamed to weep; ’tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones are sealed inside to comfort us.” — Brian Jacques

Gord knew that Lynda wasn’t happy with my driving time and from time to time he used to tell me that have some patience, everything will be just fine.  He definitely gave me the impression that he doesn’t like to lose me and that was a very good thing for me.

In due course, we found out that Gord left his job at Molson Brewery and accepted the position with Beaver Lumber Company along with the team of folks who were working with them.

We also found out that Gord and Margret sold their beautiful house and moved to Oshawa where Gord’s mother used to live and it was relatively closer to the new location of our office. Furthermore, Margret was pregnant with Stephaney.

I kept telling Lynda that if she doesn’t like me to keep driving long distance every day, we do have a potential solution.  While we were aware of the fact that there’s no way we can afford a house where my office was located, but a few miles away could possibly make a difference in prices.  Based on this theory, we started exploring the possibilities and discovered a beautiful little community, not too far from my office, called West Hill.   We also found a nice townhome there with the features Lynda liked very much.  The townhome was absolutely attractive.  We knew that we will not have any problems with arranging the mortgage even though the price of the townhouse we were considering was more than double to what we had paid for our current home in Bramalea but we were faced with the following two challenges:

  1. We were not going to make any money on our townhome because it was a buyer market; and
  2. Like anybody else, the young couple that was interested in buying our townhome were hard working folks but they had no cash in the bank for the down payment.

What they had was a piece of paper from their grandparents as a wedding gift saying that they own a small piece of land somewhere in Bancroft, Ontario and they were prepared to transfer that piece of land in our names as a down payment to the townhome.   

I wasn’t too captivated with their story but Lynda was always a sucker to those kinds of episodes.  The minute she heard “Bancroft”, she told them that we just been there recently on our holidays and the place is absolutely booming which indirectly recognized the fact that the land could be worth more in the future.  They were very smart, the next time they came to see us they brought their both kids and Lynda was so thrilled to see them.  I tried to impose the following two conditions:

  1. The real estate agent should take the responsibility to determine the possible value of the piece of land; and
  2. The lawyer who is doing the transaction should verify the validity of the piece of land. 

Lynda wasn’t that excited with my conditions but she supported me. 

In a nutshell, we ended up buying the townhome in West Hill in 1976.  One of the attractive features of the townhome was that it was located across from an Elementary School where Maxine started attending.  Maxine used to volunteer her mother in the school for anything and everything.  Lynda ended up helping kids in kindergarten with the reading, and writing two or three days a week.  She was allowed to take Adam with her and Adam really enjoyed going to school with his mom.  Once the teachers found out that Lynda is available, willing, and located right across the school, they started sending kids for lunches and Lynda started making some money.   

Lynda started making friends with other parents and going out for coffee. She was really enjoying her house and new environment colossally.       

Our Story – Chapter 12