Anna began her life as premature baby in St.Pauls Hospital on October 1969. Born to her parents Katarina and Augustin Halenar and a 14 year old brother named Mario. Her parents and brother had recently come to Canada in 1968 seeking a better life and future for themselves and their son from the then Soviet controlled communist Czechoslovakia.
The Halenar family started their Canadian life in Montreal but soon realized that the West Coast and Vancouver would be the ideal place in their new country to take roots and have another child. Anna-Maria was the family's Canadian baby. At first they lived in a humble apartment in downtown Vancouver and soon after Anna was born they purchased their first home in North Vancouver on east 21st street.
I don't know much about my wife’s early years but her parents along with the help of her brother Mario were doing well for themselves. Anna spent her elementary years and subsequent high school years all in North Vancouver. I know she was an excellent student all throughout her years and she was quite an accomplished pianist too. She would tell me how she could be a bit of a brat to her mother which I always have a hard time believing, for if you knew her, this trait would be hard to imagine.
After high school Anna travelled to Slovakia and then Japan to teach English and immerse herself in the culture of her parents, and her new found love of Japan. She spoke fluid Slovakian and was also well versed in Japanese and Spanish. When she came back from these adventures she settled on becoming a nurse and attended Simon Fraser University for a sciences degree and then BCIT for her career in nursing.
I met Anna online in a chat room in 1998 during the infancy of the internet so we were pioneers of a sort. It took many chats, e-mails and then phone calls before she agreed to meet me for a first date. She always said the fact that I owned a cat sealed the deal for her, and 25 years, 2 kids and multiple pets later I am forever thankful to my cat Rufus. I am also thankful to her for our many years of wedded happiness.
Anna-Maria loved cats! The more the better. When she was sick she asked if we could get a cat and of course I said yes. While we were picking one out she had 2 cats she couldn’t decide between. I asked which one she liked the best and she looked at each one many times before looking up at me with a sad face and said "I can't decide". I then asked "do you want them both?", to which she broke down into tears of happiness and sobbed "Yes!".
She also loved dogs and we had a Sheltie named Chloe who sadly passed a few years ago at a young age so we then got Miya who's been a crazy but loving addition to our menagerie of kids and pets.
The only thing she loved more was her children Luke and Sonia. She always said she would walk through a wall of fire for them and I think her battle with cancer would definitely count as a wall of fire. Watching her with them was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen and experienced. She was loving, kind, gentle, understanding, compassionate and they always were number one in her thoughts and actions. Her devotion to them was selfless and amazing.
In 2014 Anna was diagnosed with lymphoma and for the last 9 and a half years I watched her fight and soldier on in the face of adversity. She was a warrior in every sense of the word. Never have I ever witnessed someone battle such insurmountable odds and keep on coming back from setbacks and obstacles almost as if to say to cancer itself "What more you got?" She fought long and hard and I am and will always be amazed at her resilience and tenacity. She gave everything she could for so long for which the kids, and I, and all her friends and family are eternally grateful. May we all have such courage and be able to summon such power when faced with our own obstacles in life.
Most of you will know that she had a customized license plate that read “HANKA”. Hanka is a cute form of the name Anna in Slovak. Many people have wondered this over the years so, now you know.
Anna, I love, have loved and will always love you for everything you have shown me, taught me and for providing me with a wonderful life, a wonderful wife and 2 fantastic children. May you finally get the rest you deserve and I know somewhere, sometime our souls will meet again.
Love Matt
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