Our family and "Uncle Ken"

Our relationship with Ken started in Guatemala in 1996. Ken realized there were some things that needed to be fixed in our dear Guatepeor. Making San Marcos his new station, he lived and worked with this Canadian guy who did not speak Spanish and needed some translation. In exchange, Ken developed good story material that he would use for entertaining others over beer. Mike Brown and Ken became very close friends.

A few months later, Ken moved to the big city. When in Guate city Ken and I met and slowly started building up a great friendship. We spent coffee breaks, lunches, dinners and lots beer nights together after work . We worked in different offices, but mine embraced him as an honorary member. There was always an extra piece of cake or an extra glass of wine for Ken at my office parties.

By 1997 Mike moved to the city and found a house to share with two of his best buddies: another Canadian, John Tyynela, and Ken Ward. It was then that John and Ken became friends.

I met Mike and John through Ken - boy did we have some great time together. It was then my turn to bring someone into the equation, my little girl Elisa. And then we were five. Mike and I started dating and Ken started doing some babysitting....the love, patience and endurance to watch the same Disney movies over and over again earn him the title of "Uncle Ken". For Uncle John, the title of “Good Father” came along a few years later. Since then Ken, John and Mike became the three musketeers in my life.

Eventually all of our lives took new directions. For Ken and Yesenia, they were together having Eliza and Robert. For Mike and I, together adding our little Michelle to the clan.
The rest of the story is filled with many more memories. Some of them happy and funny, some sad and funny. Time with Ken was always a laugh. As the years went by, we spent time together in different combinations - all of us together at times or some of us together in different places of the planet. In recent years, there was often a long distance between us but the friendship has always remained very close.

Every now and then we would fantasize about the future. We talked about places we would like to be with our families and our friends. We concluded living near each other was the perfect plan: Thailand seemed ideal to begin. Montreal the perfect place for later on, as we got older, as our kids were grown up and we could have time again to enjoy ourselves in bars and restaurants, letting the belly grow....

Seems we will have to adapt our imaginary plans once more. But not much, as it does not matter how much time goes by, or where we grow old there will always be a happy, kind, loving "Uncle Ken" in our hearts and in our minds.

Headdy