Friend #6 - Sherrie

My condo complex had our annual board meeting last weekend out by the pool.  I know it’s February but this is Phoenix, folks, so it was seventy degrees.  When I arrived, there was a small gathering of homeowners milling around the donuts and coffee.  Most of the people had brought lawn chairs.  I plopped mine next to a dark haired woman and said, “Mind if I sit next to you?”  And that’s how I met Sherrie. 

In the short time before the meeting, I found out Sherrie was from Canada, she only lives here during the winter months, and she and her husband own a bunch of businesses in Canada.  Once the meeting got under way, I realized Sherrie knew a lot of people in my complex.  Apparently, she and her husband are well established in spending the winter months here.  We call those people snowbirds in Phoenix and as the meeting droned on, I thought:  I don’t know any snowbirds.  The purpose of this blog is to meet people who are different from me so after the meeting, I asked if she would be a willing participant in this little experiment.  And she agreed.

We met at an Olive Garden restaurant not far from our condo complex.  It was a Thursday night.  I trudged in after a full day of work, rumpled in my jeans and t-shirt.  Sherrie blew in looking crisp and refreshed in a nice black top and pants.  She is from British Columbia, along the Alaskan Highway where the arctic tundra of winter is fierce this time of year.  Her husband, Shane, who was up there checking on their businesses, told her it was negative twenty-five degrees that morning.  That, in itself, was enough to make me understand why Sherrie might enjoy it down in Phoenix during the winter.  But it’s not just the cold that gets to Sherrie.  Those from the Pacific Northwest know the sun rarely comes out between the months of September and May, and Sherrie, like many people, suffers from depression when she doesn’t get enough sunshine.

Her husband, on the other hand, travels back and forth during the winter.  Sherrie says she doubts he will ever retire.  Shane’s father started the family truck company with just one dump truck many years ago.  By the time Sherrie’s husband was sixteen, he had his own truck.  He and his siblings have now grown the business into a thriving company with almost forty trucks…but it wasn’t easy.  With a family business, it is hard to know where the family ends and the business begins, and when Sherrie came into the family, twenty-nine years ago, she quickly realized the decisions she and her husband made as a family were sometimes overshadowed by the will of other family members.  Sherrie’s mother-in-law, in a particular, had a rough time accepting that her son had a family of his own.

In a way, it was a rather traditional life where Sherrie raised their three children and Shane went off to work, but the life of a business owner doesn’t necessarily stop at a certain hour of the day.  Often, Shane would be gone for long periods of time, leaving Sherrie to play both mother and father to their children.  Any mother will tell you raising children is strenuous work, and during those times when Shane was gone, Sherrie would also have to deal with business matters at home.  It was tough.  And it was even more difficult when Canada’s economy hit the skids and the business started to flounder.  They kept their employees on as long as they could, finding them odd jobs to do around the office but eventually, there was no getting around it.  Financially, they had to let some people go.  These were hard workers that were loyal to the company.  Sherrie and Shane agonized over the decision and finally agreed to keep only those workers who had families to support, although it was a difficult decision all the way around. 

But the economy came back around and business started to pick up again.  Sherrie’s children grew up and now have children of their own.  Of course, she’s still a doting mother…and grandmother.  During our dinner, her youngest daughter called and I could hear the warmth in Sherrie’s voice as they briefly spoke.  When she hung up, Sherrie told me her daughter struggled with a weight problem for most of her life but over the last two years, her daughter has lost a ton of weight and transformed her body.  Sherrie showed me pictures and proudly told me how her daughter now wants to find ways to motivate others to do the same.  This is the daughter that now runs their gym.  I could tell how proud Sherrie is of her.

Sherrie and Shane now have other business ventures, too.  In addition to the gym, they also own a carwash and another business involving grills (I think).  When the kids all left home, Sherrie started an antique boutique shop with a friend of hers that she helped run until her mother grew ill.  Nowadays, Sherrie’s life isn’t ruled by timeframes.  She goes and comes as she pleases.  They own a few properties down here in the U.S. and a motor home that allows them to travel around. 

And as Sherrie was telling me all of this, it occurred to me that I’m sitting across from her at an Olive Garden, our condo complex is far from flashy, and Sherrie isn’t really that much older than I am.  She’s very modest yet engaging.  She’s also the first person to tell you that she knows she’s fortunate.  I was a little in awe because I don’t know anyone else with that type of freedom!  I took a moment to take stock of my emotions and as I was faltering, she said, “Well, that’s it,” as if to apologize to me.  As if her life wasn’t very interesting.  I was little dumbfounded in my envy.  What struck me the most wasn’t the fact that she has the financial security to do what she pleases or the freedom of her time.  What struck me the most was something she said very early on in our conversation…

Her husband had called her that morning and said, “You know, I miss you.  I can’t wait to see you.”  Sherrie told me that even after twenty-nine years of marriage they still love being in each other’s company.  It is eminently apparent that Sherrie has the type of deep, loving relationships that I’ve failed miserably at attaining.  It would mean so much to me if anyone enjoyed my company enough to miss me.  And as I hugged Sherrie goodbye, I left with a sense of hope…because if there is one person in this world who is truly loved then maybe, just maybe, there is hope for me yet.