In the Fall of 1998, I was hired as Creative Director for a division of BBDO in Windsor, Ontario with a mandate of changing the perception of Chrysler Canada.
I remember Yim and I had just started dating seriously that summer when I flew to Windsor in October for my job interview. A week later I was asked to return and asked to join the company. They would arrange and pay for all moving expenses for us.
I was excited and flew back home and took Yim out for dinner.
This was a pivotal moment in our lives because at dinner, I asked Yim if she would come with me if I said Yes – and she said Yes, she would.
I believe had she said No, my life, our lives, would have been drastically different than the life we have now.
Yim was still working at Le Chateau as the Executive Administrator to the President so the move took a bit of coordinating. She had to hand in her resignation and I had to start work before Yim could arrive so I stayed in a hotel for six weeks and spent the weekends and evenings house hunting until I found a lovely little house at 1918 Oneida Court (above).
I had packed up my little condo on Lakeshore Drive in Dorval and Yim packed up her house and coordinated the movers and we had a nice going away dinner with a few friends on Monkland Boulevard in NDG.
This was the beginning for us… a new start in a new city – just the two of us.
We had never lived together so this was an exciting stage of our lives. We had a backyard and a garden and a rickety old garage that had an alleyway behind the house from which you could enter, an old gate and a nice big deck. The house also came with landlords right next door, who turned out to be absolutely wonderful and we became friends with them and their two children. We bought tomatoes and peppers and started our lives together.
My office was close enough that I could walk to work and I loved that.
Often, at lunch, I would come home and we would spend a half hour or so together. We had mostly unpacked our things and Yim was spending time at home while considering what she would do. One day, she told me she was going to make slip covers for the couch she had brought along and by the end of the week, she had basically re-upholstered the couch with new slip covers. I was impressed.
Yim also began teaching T’ai Ch’i in the late afternoon at a local gym and quickly built a good sized class of students.
This was also the time in my life when I got to know Yim’s mother, who came to visit so we could show her our new life. Little did I know at the time that she and I would become such good friends.
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