Peter Begins

This is the first post in a series of writings from Peter Wolfe about his life, just for us, see here for the intro.

My Normal Life

I am currently just short of 54 years old. I was married for 10,192 days, or 27 years, 10 months and 22 days – about 10,192 days too short in my view. I always knew my wife Carol. We grew up in the same small town, Yarrow, BC. There is a picture of us sitting side by side in Sunday school when we were 4 or 5 years old. Except for one year, we went to the same public and private schools thru graduation. We both graduated from UBC, Carol as a teacher in ‘79 and I in Engineering in ‘81.

We never really spent any time together until university days. Carol’s best friend married my best friend – both also from Yarrow. They arranged us spending time together and soon the sparks flew. I fell for Carol hard – I still remember lying on my bed in my dorm and feeling this flush come over me and realizing – I LOVE HER - and then feeling panic because that meant marriage and I wasn’t ready!
We must have been fast learners because we started dating in September ‘78 and by Christmas we KNEW. We got married on July 28 1979.

This is Carol’s UBC grad picture … my favorite early picture of her.

After I graduated from UBC we went off to Europe for what I thought was a vacation but Carol had a plan – her name turned out to be Rachel. After Erik then Kelly were born – 3 years, 3 kids – we put a stop to all that and began the life journey of being parents – what a pleasure that was. All three are now married – and NO, no grandkids (yet).














This is a picture of my family. Left to right is Holly & Erik (son), Conrad & Kelly (daughter), me, Rachel (daughter) & Chris. Yes you are right – a very good looking family.

I have worked in the software development field in positions of increasing responsibility for almost 30 years now. I can truly say that I love what I do. Most days, going to work is something that I enjoy.

My journey with my true Father began when I was very young – I think I was 6 or 7 years old and “gave my life to Jesus” at home after one of those fire and brimstone and “just as I am” evenings we used to have at church. Church was always part of my life growing up as was true for Carol. Looking back I think one of the reasons for the joy on earth that was our marriage was because we were similar in lots of ways including our spiritual journeys. This picture shows a graph of my passion for the true Father over the years. As you can see there was a flat line period. The jump came when I met Carol – on Christmas Eve ’78 I decided to say yes again to following Jesus. The next 20 or so years, well, there was lots of energy spent on doing things for the Father but not much energy being with the Father. That’s part of the next installment.

So what would you do if you could have your life to do over? You know, start again, a new beginning? From this period of my life I would:

Spend less time at work. Carol said she used to sit with the kids by the window and say “Daddy, we need you”, waiting for me to come home. Work matters, just less than we think.
There are a few arguments I wish I could replay. In ALL cases I was the stubborn ass. I wish I could have those back and say “I was wrong” … very powerful words, for men particularly I think.
Mostly, I imagine falling in love with my true Father much sooner.

See you next time.

Peter

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