Expressions by Rosaline

Rosaline Christensen is a retired Early Childhood Educator living on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, with her professionally trained (PADS) Pacific Assistance Dog Society hearing dog Elphie. She enjoys nature, walks along the water, her Victoria Symphony membership, and creating original “Frame-It-Cards” using flowers that she has grown and pressed.

In 2016, she published Laura Lamb Finds the Forest, a children’s picture book.

WALK: WITH EACH STEP THERE’S HOPE is her first book of non-fiction and will be available in early 2023. Rosaline believes we connect through story. She desires that by writing WALK, her autobiography, others will feel encouragement and hope.

WALK: WITH EACH STEP THERE’S HOPE

     “On October 6, 1981, I had a fifteen-and-a-half-hour surgery; it was autumn; the leaves were changing colour. The landscape was changing, and so was I. The lengthy surgery and long recovery left me with significant emotional, physical, and spiritual changes from my previous self. It had a profound effect on my family; my children lost the mother as they knew her. My husband lost his wife as he knew me. It was like a death that none of us were ready for; we didn’t experience grief because I was still alive.”

Walk: With Each Step There’s Hope begins with Rosaline growing up on a farm in Fraser Valley, British Columbia in the 1940s and 50s. Abused verbally and emotionally by her father, he eventually abandons the family when she is fourteen (events which affect her mindset and relationships for years to come), essentially ending her childhood as she steps in to fill the support role for her mother and younger siblings.

At twenty, she marries a man she loves but admits she is not in love with, and raises four children with him during their twenty-two-year marriage.

The removal of a benign acoustic neuroma tumour at age thirty-nine (which leaves her with a long-term hearing impairment) leads her down a path of physical, emotional, and spiritual transformation.

Years later, travelling alone on a three-month backpacking sojourn to the Maritimes for her sixty-fifth birthday, the kindness and affirmation she receives from strangers encourages her to share her story of hope with others.

Little does she know as she embarks on this trip, that it will take her on the longest journey of all . . . from her head to her heart.

This candid and touching memoir is about resilience, courage, inspiration, family, love, abandonment, addiction, forgiveness, understanding, personal transformation, letting go of expectations, living in the present moment, and most of all, to keep walking through life . . . because with each step there is hope.

“LAURA LAMB FINDS THE FOREST” is about a lonely little lamb who finds her way into the forest.  There she finds the companionship of nature.  Her senses of sight, sound, and smell are enhanced as she connects with nature.  She feels embraced by the beautiful sight of butterflies and flowers.  She is hugged by the noon-day sun.  She feels love and peace.  She feels a sense of connection to nature and no longer feels alone and lonely.  The book is available on amazon.ca, amazon.com, and expressionsbyrosaline@gmail.com

“PRESSED FLOWERS FROM MY GARDEN”  Handmade Frame-it-Cards – Victoria, B.C.   The placement, beauty, and expression of creating each original “frame-it card” gives Rose great pleasure, joy, and appreciation. Custom orders are taken for birthdays, sympathy, etc. Print cards available.  The card is blank inside and easily written upon while attached to mat. Please Contact expressionsbyrosaline@gmail.com for purchase and information.