Karen Lowden:  

Life Since leaving Gladstone, I travelled across the country quite afew times, finally meeting and marrying a high school fella when I found myself back in Vancouver. That didn't last, no hard feelings though, and then I got engaged a few years later and became pregnant and gave birth to one son, Kristoffer, who is 26 now, but his father and I never did manage to hook up legally. So, after afew years of that I met someone in Victoria who was from Fort Erie, Ontario where he swept me off to just after we married in Vancouver. That marriage lasted 13 years, but was very bad. So much for the third one being the charm. I did, however, finally meet the man who I will be spending the rest of my life with. We taught scuba diving in Southern Ontario for about 8 years, then when Ian,(my husband) became terminally ill at the same time as my father getting throat cancer out here in BC (Gabriola Island to be precise) we made the move back to BC where my mother and I held vigal (sp?)only to become very blessed that my father got better after surgery and Ian seems to be breathing better out here...(oh ya, he got sick from bad air being put into our scuba tanks and after 300+ dives a year, plus pool time, that's alot of bad air..charcoal slivers coming through our filters. He was supposed to die 8 years ago, but he is still here and loving every minute of the west coast (Lala land he calls it)and we both are disabled (for me it's degenerative disc disease of my spine) but together it is absolutely amazing what we can and do accomplish. He loves gardening and Zen and having been a counselor for 20 years he has hung up his shingle and practices to the unfortunate (rather than the wealthy) and I sometimes help him in this as well. We are partners in everything. He once told me that he would rather be terminally ill and with me than totally healthy and without me, so, come on girls, where do you find men like that? Answer...you don't. So, we are on our own little Island (where my parents live too) called Gabriola Island and it is a 20-minute ferry ride from Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. My hobbies are aquariums and ponds, I even have an aquarium in the bathroom. I also enjoy drawing in any texture and painting as well. I have done alot of ceramics which I'm real proud of. What else, I guess the only thing I can add here before closing is that if anyone remembers how bad I looked in High School, well I kinda turned out pretty well and just celebrated my 50th birthday last August by having a block party wearing a mini-ski...Expand for more