(Thomas Froese / Jean Chamberlain Froese)
(The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, August 1, 2026)
Before the hockey photo there was this other one.
There’s an attractive young lady on a boat. She’s a worthwhile catch, according to my friend who’s showing me. “That’s Jean,” he said. I was intrigued.
She’s leaning against a wall on this houseboat, looking into the camera with a certain energy, like she’s sure of something. Anyone could see it, this aura about her, even though these things are hidden.
So I phoned her, as reporters do, cold. Why not? Invited her to a group camping weekend. She couldn’t come, but soon I was writing about her travels and work as an obstetrician, a baby catcher, helping vulnerable mothers in hard places, overseas. I wrote plenty, so my editor asked, “Are you dating this woman?”
One evening we’d meet friends at a ballgame, but nobody showed. So we enjoyed dinner and Victoria Day fireworks before, that night, I showed her the newsroom. That summer she invited me to a wedding. I’m no socialite, or singer, but at the reception I decided to go to the podium and sing for everyone about a cow’s love for steak sauce. To impress Jean. Imagine! Crazy.
Later, she’s in the Middle East, in Yemen. When I told my editor I’d visit her, he almost swallowed his gum. Jean’s friends gave me Air Miles points. No cost. I’d never had friends like it. I eventually told my newsroom colleagues I was leaving to marry and work in Yemen. They looked at me with blank faces.
My friends wished me well and everything, but couldn’t believe it either. I’d been single forever. Take your time. Don’t chase love for the wrong reasons. That was me. Now some mystery was knitting together this deepening friendship.
It’s still there, this friendship. Not that marriage doesn’t need some tigers of the heart and the loins. It does. But you need to fit intellectually and emotionally and spiritually. Even socially, although some of us need our quiet space.
It’s never perfect. I have gaps. She has gaps. Together we fill each other’s gaps. This is relational gap theory. I’m no expert. Who is? But this week, on Wednesday, we celebrated our 25th. It can be done.
Thursday, by the way, was World Friendship Day. Just saying.
Twenty years before our wedding, Charles and Di, the tumultuous royals, wed on July 29th. I didn’t know this 25 years ago when I asked that paper’s publisher if I could run some special editions with a fun story for our upcoming engagement.
“Give us $100 to change the press plates,” the publisher told me. “Okay,” I said.
The half made-up story of Jean and myself as children was headlined “Royal Wedding!” It filled front page. Actors read the newspapers in a theater lobby. Radio announced it. Complete strangers were happy to help with it all, my engagement surprise. Later I discovered the Charles and Di co-incidence and didn’t know what to think.
Life speaks in strange ways. You’re eating your cereal, or standing in the shower, or walking down the sidewalk, and some ordinary moment shows you something new. Something fresh.
One day when I was single I imagined the acronym GOALIE. It was like a quirky prayer for my future partner. ‘G’ for a woman with a godly, that is generous, heart. ‘O’ for outgoing. ‘A’ to be attractive to me. ‘L’ to genuinely love life. ‘I’ for intelligent. ‘E’ for equally attracted to me.
Years later, in East Africa, someone took a photo of us playing hockey, hard at it. Those games with Ugandan friends were the best times. And there’s Jean in net. Much later, in a quiet moment, I saw, really saw, that photo. It seemed sacred. I’d found my goalie. Somehow. Go figure.
One minute you’re looking at a pretty woman on a boat. The next, it’s your 25th and you’re telling the world how mystery rules. And how you can’t imagine life without her.
Happy Anniversary to us.