How long does it take for you to like someone? I’m a love you till you give me reason to question what I did wrong kind of girl.
Jamie is the kind of young woman that many women might avoid on first sight. Tall, beautiful, big smile, amazingly fit..she is the kind of woman that intimidates many at first. She absolutely doesn’t deserve that. I wasn’t intimidated, I was in awe! Jamie looked amazing and I congratulate that, she takes great care of herself. But, then again, beauty and success doesn’t intimidate me, ugliness of heart and mind does.
Name: Jamie Burke
Occupation: Personal Trainer & Co – Proprietor of VI Levels Gym Winter Garden
& Mum of a 3 year old gorgeous boy & 6 year old beautiful daughter.
1.Where were you born and raised?
Toronto, Ohio
(A very small community with less than 5,000 residents not that far from the border of Canada)
Jamie is very proud of her home town, the people, the community, they come together as family and support one another which at times in her life has been very important to her.
Disney bought Jamie to Florida as a Business Management Student where she eventually ran a hotel, but never stopped her passion which was training & personal training.
2. Tell me a childhood memory.
‘You always love seeing your parents proud, I remember being good at track and being really good in my area. My Mom, she was always proud of us but never said it but I remember she was at every track meeting, she would be there with this big video camera, now they are little but this was huge, my maiden name was Keenan so they called it the Keenan Cam, everybody knew about it and she didn’t miss one track meet holding that video camera. Seeing her proud of me winning every race and she’d be smiling. Without her saying it I knew she was proud.’
Jamie made it to State Competitions, not yet achieved by anyone else in her town. That deserves a street name if you ask me….
3. What is your favourite season & why?
‘I grew up in Snow, I like going back and seeing it for Christmas but Summer is my favourite, I love the energy, having cookouts, I love boating, I love fishing, laying out, schools out..I just love it.’
4. Tell me about someone you love.
Jamie had already talked to me about her beloved Mom, Gloria, Gloria Jean.
Gloria passed of Cancer 10 years ago aged only 52. For some time Gloria had protected her children and hidden from them her terrible disease as she didn’t want them to suffer too. It was difficult to talk about and at length she told me about how she went back to Toronto for 6 months to be with her and the effect it had on the whole family.
‘It had to be my Mom, yeah. Its hard, I don’t ever like cry, (we did today) you hold it in. I think when you become a Mom then you see how much they like, how much they really cared about you. I didn’t know, like when she got mad at me why she got mad at me, like her whole life was for me my brother & sister. When she got sick you never knew she was sick. She went through all that, she went to chemo every week and we never knew. She made sure no one ever saw her sick. I knew she was amazing then but as you get older you see her life was for us, and even being sick she would never complain. Her doctor told us that she would base her chemo treatments around coming to see us. She lived to come to Florida for a week, even though she was sick her we never knew. She never missed anything in our lives, she gave up being a Teacher to raise us. She was a tough Mom but in a good way. My Mom was my Best Friend. Every happy and exciting moment in my life is sad. Like when I got married, she didn’t meet John, she didn’t meet my kids, I think back and I don’t have one moment or one memory that she wasn’t there. I can just see her laughing, she was hilarious, she always had a smile. ‘
5. What words of wisdom do you have for the reader about life?
‘Live like theres no tomorrow.’
6. Dreams for the future.
‘I wanna be able to grow our gym, big enough that I can just be a Mom, I wanna travel, I want to earn enough money to be able to have the freedom to just be with my kids’.
She’ll never stop training, nor should she, she is so good at it, she makes me wanna work harder and love my body that little bit more.
My goodness, I loved our conversation.
I’m so happy to share the words of the people I meet. I hope they reach people and help whoever reads them.
What I didn’t expect to happen is for the people I reach out to, to help me. The conversation I had with Jamie today touched me, reached me in a place I hadn’t expected. I broke down in front of Jamie, she said something about her Mom that is me..it was powerful and shocking and will help me be better, be different, we were meant to have this conversation, fate has bought us together and I hope we have a future as friends, I think we will.
