Path to Happiness: The Inspirational Story of my Wife

By Craig Daniel

Imagine growing up in poverty, in a small town where everybody else was rich.
Imagine growing up Jewish, in a small town where everybody else was Catholic.
Imagine growing up as an only child, only to later discover that you weren’t.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483525174

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Path to Happiness: The Inspirational Story of my Wife

Copyright © 2014 by Craig Daniel.

All rights reserved.

The names and identifying details of a few individuals in this book have been changed to protect their privacy.

This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

without the express written permission of the author

except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Edited by Debbie Konrad

Proofread by J. Briggs

ISBN: 9781483525174

Acknowledgements

I thank my parents, who bore the weight of my world without complaint for so many years, and always encouraged me to chase my passion. I thank my wife Clara, for serving as the inspiration for this book. I thank my dog, who keeps me grounded and reminds me not to take life so seriously. And I thank Debbie Konrad, my editor, for turning the wretched carcass of my first draft into something that I can be proud of.

Table of Contents

Copyright

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Birth of a Biography

Chapter 1: Tragedy and a New Beginning

Chapter 2: Seeds of Self-Reliance

Chapter 3: Determination

Chapter 4: Lost Brothers

Chapter 5: Leaving the Comfort Zone

Chapter 6: Prosperity and Happiness Through Giving

Chapter 7: Final Thoughts

About the Author

Introduction

Birth of a Biography

I almost drowned during the swimming portion of my first, and only, triathlon.

I’m a terrible swimmer. I had practiced intensely for almost a year, so I could at least complete the swimming portion of the race. In the spirit of candidness, I should also mention that this was a beginner’s triathlon, which means that the swimming distance was a paltry 400 meters.

As soon as the race began, my well-crafted strategy collapsed like the walls of Jericho. I had practiced swimming at a slow, even pace. What I hadn’t practiced was swimming in front of a large group of enthusiastic supporters.

The cheering seduced me. The seduction had two unfortunate effects. First, it changed the source of my motivation. I suddenly wanted to race for the supportive crowd and not just for myself. This, in turn, led me to start the race as fast as possible. I must have known that such a course would only lead to my self-destruction. But such is the nature of seduction.

And so the race began. I usually feel like I’m fighting the water when I swim, as if I were dragging a large river barge full of elephants behind me. But for the first thirty seconds, I actually felt a wonderful synergy between myself and the water. Then things started to change. I spent far too much energy trying to pass somebody. I began to tire. I slowed down. I remember being passed by a swimmer who only had one leg.

At the 300 meter mark, I completely ran out of gas. I was lucky the race was in a pool and that I had buoys to cling to.

Unfortunately, my poor swimming skills in the pool were somehow genetically transferred to my guys.

My wife Clara and I spent years trying to conceive a child. The antechinus is an Australian rodent that has sex for twenty-four straight hours, after which most males die of exhaustion; we weren’t quite as dynamic, but we did give it our all. Unfortunately, nothing ever happened. After tests were belatedly conducted, we received the bad news: we would not be able to have children. My guys were simply too slow.

Undaunted, we threw our hat into the ring of an adoption agency. We filled out long questionnaires. We underwent interviews and criminal-record checks. We wrote an essay explaining why we would make good parents, and some of what we wrote was even true. We put together a collage of pictures to show prospective birthmothers.

Inspectors from the agency visited our home. We sat through numerous classes and information sessions, with other prospective and desperate adoptive parents. The sessions were initially awkward, even competitive, with the prospective parents silently sizing each other up. Finally, we provided the agency with a rather sizable cheque. Or more accurately, cheques.

Then began the waiting game. So we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

During this phase of my life, I found myself thinking of all the qualities that would make Clara a wonderful mother, and I had an Oprah-worthy Aha! moment. I realized that my wife’s life story is unique. It’s inspirational. She used each of the challenges and obstacles she faced as a stepping stone on her journey towards happiness and prosperity.

As a young girl in school, one of Clara’s teachers asked the class to describe their main goals in life. Some girls said they wanted to get married. One boy said he wanted to be an engineer. A girl wanted to be a pilot. Another boy said he would one day own a business.

Clara then raised her hand and said, I want to be happy.

That’s not an answer, the teacher said. Everybody wants to be happy.

If everybody truly wants to be happy, Clara responded, why was I the only one in class to describe it as my goal?

Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy.

—Cynthia Nelms

Clara’s circumstances while growing up did not represent fertile grounds for success and happiness. She grew up in poverty, in a town where everybody else was rich. She grew up Jewish, in a town where everybody else was Catholic. She had no one who pushed her to excel in school, or challenged her to see the world beyond the walls of her small hometown in France.

Clara’s path took her from living in a tiny apartment with no bathroom to owning her own properties. She evolved from a young girl insecure about her relative poverty and self-worth, to a confident woman who delivers seminars in front of hundreds of participants. She evolved from being subjected to humiliation by some of her high-school teachers to a part-time professor who uses her position to inspire and empower her students. She arrived in Canada as an immigrant with no money, and is now a successful entrepreneur with multiple streams of income.

So I decided to write a book about Clara’s inspirational life. I hope to highlight some of Clara’s ideas and experiences, which people can draw from when charting their own courses towards happiness and prosperity.

But more importantly, I write this book for the eyes of my future child. I plan to show her the book on her thirteenth birthday. A book about the life of her wonderful mother. A story about the extraordinary life of an ordinary wife. About the woman I respect and who inspires me. About the woman who will always be the wind behind my sails.

This book is for you, my future child, whoever and whenever you may be.

Craig Daniel

Summer 2011

Chapter One

Tragedy and a New Beginning

At what point does a person’s story begin? When they emerge from their mother’s womb? When they first do something actually worth telling?

Should the story begin with a snapshot of their last known relatives? Or with their great grandparents?

Perhaps there is no correct answer.

I wanted a story with a perfect beginning and ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end.

—Gilda Radner

Clara Cohen is one of the most independent, self-reliant individuals I know. This is reflected in her unrelenting entrepreneurial spirit.

At first, I couldn’t figure out the drivers behind Clara’s passion for self-employment and business.

It can be argued that people end up living 80% of the life their parents led, no matter how much they vow to do otherwise. If your parents had a dog, you’ll get a dog. If your dad loved tennis or skiing, you’ll end up playing tennis and skiing. If your parents didn’t eat very healthy foods, guess what your eating habits will be like? If your parents were business owners or entrepreneurs, chances are that’s what you are right now.

Clara’s entrepreneurial drive confused me, since there were no business-minded role models in her life. Her mother was a chambermaid with no business acumen whatsoever. Her father died when she was a young child. But later on, I found out that Clara did have an entrepreneurial role model, albeit one who had lived two generations earlier.

And so, Clara’s story shall begin with a grandfather she never met: Ephraim Cohen. Illiterate. Obese. Unfaithful. Controlling.

Brilliant entrepreneur.

The story shall trace Ephraim’s rise from poverty to riches. It will explore how an inheritance made Clara’s mother a millionaire, and how, six months later, she ended up broke.

Ephraim Cohen was born in 1884. He grew up in Bursa, a thriving city in northwestern Turkey. As the first capital of the ancient Ottoman Empire, Bursa was the beneficiary of the finest mosques, theological schools, spas, and public fountains. A stroll through its vibrant streets led past arched portals, magnificent domes and beautifully tiled minarets.

Ephraim’s father was named Youda (not identical to Luke Skywalker’s green mentor). He was likely descended from Jews who were expelled from Spain or Portugal beginning in the late fifteenth century. The Ottoman sultan at the time issued a formal invitation to the dispossessed to come and live in his empire. Diaspora Jews took him up on the offer and made their way to cities like Bursa.

Not much is known about Ephraim’s life in Turkey, and I won’t make anything up just to create a nice-sounding story. What is known is that one day while Ephraim played soccer in Bursa, the ball flew into a neighbor’s front yard. As he picked up the ball, he noticed a young, bashful girl looking at him. She was eight years younger than he was. Her name was Meriam Saghes.

Blah blah blah blah... and before they knew it, they were married.

At some point between 1916 and 1920, Ephraim came to the conclusion that it might be better to be a French Jew than a Turkish Jew. So Ephraim, Meriam and their son, Judas, made their way to Istanbul. Shortly after, they boarded a ship bound for Marseille, France. Once Ephraim and his family arrived in Christian Europe, they concluded that their son Judas might be in for a tough time from his future peers, so they started calling him Leon instead.

Marseille.

The oldest city in France, second in size only to Paris.

The local population enthusiastically embraced the French Revolution and sent five hundred volunteers to Paris in 1792 to defend the revolutionary government. Their rallying call to revolution, sung on their march to Paris, became known as La Marseillaise — which, in turn, became France’s national anthem. (It’s a delightful anthem indeed, with several references to war, blood, and the slitting of people’s throats.)

Ephraim had little money when the boat docked in Marseille’s bustling port, and he didn’t know a word of French. In fact, he had never learned to read or write in any language. His eventual success as an entrepreneur proved the adage that success has little to do with one’s genius and everything to do with one’s level of determination.

So Ephraim faced a dilemma. How do you quickly start making money to feed and house a family in a country where you don’t know anybody, and can’t speak the language? In a country where there are no social support mechanisms, like welfare, to smooth one’s transition into a working life?

His answer was simple: eggs.

Ephraim bought eggs from a local farmer, and then resold them from an old, decrepit cart. He set the cart up on a narrow sidewalk along La Canebiere, Marseille’s main street. Unfortunately, Ephraim quickly learned a fascinating fact: eggs don’t last long in Marseille’s intense summer heat. And for some reason, people aren’t terribly interested in buying foul-smelling, fetid eggs. So he quickly abandoned the idea.

However, while failure may represent a closed door, it can also be a spark which illuminates other open doors that had previously gone unnoticed. It was in this spirit that Ephraim turned his attention to selling things which were slightly more impervious to the Mediterranean sun: roasted peanuts. He obtained old, discarded newspapers for free, made funnels out of them (called cornets), and filled them with peanuts. He always allowed potential customers to try a few peanuts for free, which usually led to a sale. As someone once remarked, "No person in the world has more courage than someone who

Reviews for Path to Happiness

[sandra.k.heinzman · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I could feel the love of the author for his wife in the words of his memoir about her life. I liked the book a lot and was fascinated by her family's story. It made me think how we all have a story to tell, and everyone's story is different and interesting. I was hooked from the beginning when the author talked about attempting a sprint triathlon ( I have done this), and their infertility challenges (we went through this, too), and their desire to adopt (we adopted our two children - now grown). Even though the book is not about them, it's how the author started the book. So I could relate a lot! I thought it was well written and a fascinating look at historical events as they affected her family. I read it in one sitting because I couldn't put it down! And the woman that she has become today is very inspirational. I just wish there was more about how the author and his wife met, and where and when.

I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.