SHARON (ODDIE) BROWN
1964 - Lemoyne D'Iberville

Two months after graduating from Lemoyne D'Iberville, I headed west. Way West. Vancouver to be precise, where for two years I worked as a clerk in a bank to save money for university and took courses at night school - everything from English to classical Greek. Go figure. The university years were probably like most people's - lots of work, lots of drink, lots of fun and once more with feeling, lots of work. Once I graduated, I was hired by the New Westminster YMCA-YWCA and was made Director of Youth Programming Services (or some such - I forget the exact title). From there, I went to the Vancouver YWCA where I had quite possibly the best job of my life. I was young and energetic and was Director of Camping and Environmental Education programs at their site on Saltspring Island. The camp ran year round with adults and school groups in the winter and children in the summer. We were way ahead of the curve when it came to living lightly on the planet - it was only the 70s, for goodness sakes.

In the mid-seventies, Andreas Schroeder and I decamped for a year in Toronto (this after balancing living in two homes - his on a mountain top in Mission, mine in a duplex in Kitsilano, Vancouver). Once again, I did another YWCA stint, this time as Director of Housing and Camping Services. A couple of years later, our first daughter was born and I was stunned to find how far in love one can be with your first new born child. As I write, she is now 23 years old, a graduate of UVICs music program, a composer and working with the extremely mentally challenged. Three years later, our second daughter was born and is loved no less than the first. Thank goodness. It was the depth of that bond (for which I nor anyone can ever take credit) which sustained us in the years to come. She had been born with Cornelia DeLange Syndrome (CDLS). We were told she had a 50/50 chance of living more than a couple of years and if she did, then she would be profoundly retarded and quite possibly autistic. Well, she is now 20 years old, working part-time at Canadian Tire and taking courses in computer related subjects at Capilano College up here on the Sunshine Coast where we live (Roberts Creek, to be precise).

During the years when I was needed so hugely as a mother, I managed to squeeze in a few other things. For my sins, I did a few stints on Mission's City Council, chaired the Fraser Valley Regional Growth Strategy, the Library Board, the Water Board and such. When I was appointed Back-up on the Sewer Board, I knew it was time to get out (joke!). Actually, it was the time spent on the Growth Strategy which convinced me that it was time for a move. We got lucky and snapped up a property on the ocean with a house and cottage when the owners needed to dump it fast. Not our usual kind of financial luck, believe me. Also, in those years, I tried my hand at writing. My first published book, "Some Become Flowers: Living with Dying at Home" won a few awards and encouraged me to commit more of the same (If you are curious, it is in most large libraries & is still in print). I have since written a novel called "God is a Gun", a children's story (as yet untitled) and am working on a non-fiction book on banking in the Far East in the late 1800s called "A Silver Bowl" (I have my reasons - too long to go into here.).

Anyway, how about I stop before I bore you tears. Like any life, it has had its ups and its downs. There's lots of stuff I never have quite figured out or got quite right, but in balance, well, what the hell. Not too shabby.