Wow, you’ve just had quite an adventure.
- Tell us a little about yourself and how you came to be in the midst of such suspense.
I’m a police officer with the Niagara Regional Police and recently worked undercover as the owner of a computer shop. So when an old friend, Rick Gray, who now works out of Miller’s Bay, asked if I could go undercover in the hospital’s cancer ward as an IT consultant to investigate suspected murders, I didn’t have a good excuse to say no. At least, not one that I wanted to admit to. You see, I became a police officer after my wife died, and I’d never told anyone on the force that I was a widower, let alone that my wife had died of cancer.
- So, during the book you met Tara Peterson. Tell us a bit about her. What was your first impression? When did you know it was love?
Tara is a nurse who cares deeply for her patients and seeing justice served. She is a single mom to an adorable three-year-old. When I first met her, I was taken aback at how much she looked like my wife. She didn’t really. I think it was just that being in the hospital brought memories flooding back, and her eyes are beautiful large brown doe eyes like my wife had. I felt very protective of Tara from the beginning, probably because I so admired her fierce protectiveness of her daughter. You’ll have to read my story to find out when I knew it was love. J Little Suzie had me from the instant she threw herself into my arms.
- What strengths/skills do you have? What is your greatest weakness?
I read people pretty well. I think losing my wife has made me more empathetic to those who are suffering. I’m also pretty good with children. My greatest weakness? I guess maybe that I’m too private, which makes it difficult for people to understand how I’m feeling.
- What are you most afraid of?
Failing to protect those in my charge.
- If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
That’s a tough one. I’m a work in progress, and I just want to be where and who God wants me to be. Sometimes, in the moment, I don’t like where that ends up taking me. But you can’t give up one without losing the moments you’d never trade that arose from those trials.
- Where are you in your faith at the start of your story?
My faith is strong, but I can’t imagine that God would ever bless me with another love as wonderful as what I’d had with my first wife.
- Where are you in your faith at the end of the story?
I realized that God wanted to give me so much more than I was willing to let him.
- You’ve got a scripture at the beginning of the story. Tell us why this scripture is significant.
Proverbs 4: 18 “The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter until the full light of day.” My wife loved the Lord and even in all her suffering she never blamed him. She grew very concerned that I would blame him after she was gone. She made me promise that I wouldn’t. I found that as I trusted him more, the path shone brighter.
- If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?
To the time before my wife grew sick. I would cherish each moment far more than I did at the time, believing we had years of such moments to come.
