Christmas 1995
Seth Gonzales sat at his artist easel on the back-deck solarium of their wooded cottage in the suburbs of Seattle along with the trusted family beagle, Buddie, the dog formally known as Prince. After a circuitous path he was right where he felt his passion. Spending sixteen years in corporate marketing and the last ten years as a senior Marketing Director of Cannon Street Coffee he had experienced it all and had enough. He was done with the corporate rat-race. Although a relatively short but meteoric career filled with travel around the world, it was very stressful seeking out new and perspective Cannon Street Coffee shop locations. Then there were the financial and contract negotiations reinforcing his feelings of being a misplaced and unfulfilled artist. But his biggest regret was being away from his family for weeks at a time.
Seated outside bathed in the filtered rays of the sun through the leaves he was finally where he was destined to be but not without a price. Early retirement at the age of thirty-five to pursue his creative passions was his dream and transitioning into a full-time artist was always encouraged by his wife, and high school sweetheart, Gracie.
Christmas 1973
They were classmates at Lynnwood High where fate had thrown them together as partners in a sophomore cooking class. When he stood next to 5’-1” Gracie with her long straight blond hair and smiling hazel eyes, Seth was frozen. But whenever she smiled at him, it was love at first site all over again, making working together very pleasurable, but awkward.
Before the Christmas break, he found a sprig of mistletoe on their cooking counter and taking it as a sign from God he hung it over their station in hopes of a securing a Christmas kiss. When class was over, he summoned up the courage.
“Gracie?” he said with a big grin and pointed upward.
“Oh,” and after seeing the green sprig above, she smiled and gave Seth a hug and a big kiss. It was magical.
“Merry Christmas Gracie.”
“Merry Christmas Seth”, and while still looking into each other’s eyes, she smiled and whispered, “oh and by the way mister, that’s not mistletoe, it’s basil,” and they both broke out in hysterical laughter.
Two years later they were married, right out of high school and through the years most of their happy family dreams were realized. Seth worked part time as a checker at Gordons Market while attending the University of Washington for his MBA and Grace worked at Carries Bakery and Café in Bothell, perfecting her baking skills. They had two beautiful daughters. First came Mary and three years later, Annie and they all lived a wonderful life filled with love. Money was always tight but through the years they managed to scrape together enough to put a down payment on a run-down wooded cottage in Seattle. With only average carpentry skills, Seth and Gracie, worked together, laughed together and dreamed together. Eventually they transformed the cottage into a beautiful home that always smelled of cedar trees and sawdust mixed with baked cookies and cakes.
Eventually Seth got hired by Cannon Street Coffee, one of the top worldwide distributors of Pacific Northwest coffee. For years Seth traveled the world for his job, which at times could be very stressful. But coming home to their wooded cottage and his three girls provided happiness and much needed rejuvenation. Whenever Seth was away Gracie would read aloud to Mary and Annie from their favorite story, Little Women. When returning from a business trip he was greeted with such joy, as if coming home to Marme, Jo and Meg March, safe and sound from the Civil War. They shared happy years of bedtime stories, bake sales, scraped knees, pumpkin patches and Christmas mornings but unfortunately, Gracie was not able to share their dream of Seth’s early retirement.
to be continued