Amanda Dufour wasn’t expecting a lot when she signed up on an online dating app.
After all, she had gone through a “pretty intense divorce,” had two young children, and she was a survivor. A cancer survivor. Dufour had been diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer, and she was facing the fact that her condition was considered terminal.
Living in Innisfil at the time, she also wasn’t all that keen on changing her newly-single status.
“I liked the freedom,” Amanda admits.
But after two years of that freedom, she signed up. “I thought, why not? Just for the fun of it,” she says. “Just to talk, not to meet.”
She wasn’t expecting much from the app. After all, she says, “I was brutally honest in my ad. I told about the cancer thing right away.”
But she did get a response.
“This amazing Newfoundland boy - I was shocked that he wanted to date me.” She couldn’t believe that anyone would want to get involved, all things considered.
Chris Stead is the Newfoundlander. Divorced himself, and with a grown daughter and young grandchild back in Newfoundland, he replied to her posting.
"I was looking for a long time for someone that was compatible," explains Stead "The brutally honest profile concerned me, but it was refreshing," especially after an earlier "bad experience" with online dating.
They agreed to meet, and just two weeks and two dates later it was love.
“It was almost instantaneous. We met, we went for coffee, there were butterflies,” Amanda says. In fact, “It was butterfly central.”
"She had a beautiful smile, and was a very happy person with a big heart," Chris says. "She brightened my dull life."
He declared his love on the second date, and Amanda responded in kind – surprising herself. “I don’t do things very fast,” she says, usually taking a long time to reflect. “I was skeptical, but I knew... He was everything I had always wanted.”
Dufour and Stead may have recognized each other instantly as soulmates, but it took a while before they decided to make it permanent. They dated for almost a year before they told her children, then aged 8 and 10.
The announcement was made on a special family date – at Chucky Cheese and Legoland. “He played with them, all the time,” Dufour says. “They loved him instantly.”
Now they are together – Chris, Amanda, her two children, “and my dog and my cat.” They moved out of Innisfil two years ago, to be closer to his work as an airplane engineer, and this July will mark the 5th anniversary of their first meeting.
“He has become an amazing stepfather and spouse. I couldn’t ask for a better man to spend my life with,” says Amanda, describing him as hardworking, goal-oriented, well-grounded – and funny.
His sense of humour keeps Amanda in giggles. “It comes out randomly at the most awkward and the worst times!”
"Can I see myself without her? No.," says Chris, "because she picks me up when I'm blue, takes care of me and brightens my day."
It’s his dream to move back to Newfoundland at some point in the future, and Amanda, a realist, plans to go with him “if I’m still around. I’ve been there six times, and I love it.”
She will be leaving behind family, friends, and an “incredible support system,” but “It’s an adventure.”
And as Valentine’s Day approaches, she has a message for anyone who is alone, struggling, afraid to take a chance:
“Don’t give up. I have cancer, and I found love. Don’t give up,” she says. “Eight years with terminal cancer and I was so lucky to find real, true love.”
