Champion for Charity Jen Ziegler ready to defend home plate for the Red Team and MacKids
KITCHENER —
The freight train wore cleats and charged hard from third base.
Jen Ziegler flung her catcher’s mask off and held her hallowed ground at home plate.
Steal home on Ziegler, future real estate agent extraordinaire? Not on this fastball afternoon in Kitchener.
The Uptown Waterloo teen planted firm and clutched the ball like she was holding a Harmony Lunch pork burger.
It all happened so fast.
A cloud of dust and batter’s box chalk.
An umpire’s shriek of “Out!”
A sprained ankle for the would-be thief and Ziegler’s future fellow realtor.
They still run into each other around the housing circuit now and then. When Ziegler — 15 years a realtor — is reminded of her stubborn stance at home plate and the twisted agony that ensued, she just laughs.
“Well, you shouldn’t have tried to steal it,” replies Ziegler, now eyeing 40 as one of Mandy Bujold’s Champions for Charity.
April 4 and The Brawl at Tapestry Hall is coming up as fast as that frustrated freight train.
Ziegler, a mother of two boys, is one of 20 local business leaders and community-minded professionals stepping into the boxing ring for the first time to raise money — $605,000 and counting —for MacKids and McMaster Children’s Hospital.
Funny how life allows you to circle back and give back.
McMaster is where a freight train of grief first hit Ziegler’s family hard. Ziegler was just 3 when one of her twin sisters contracted meningitis and spent a month or so at McMaster before passing.
Her parents, Mary and Harold, were devastated.
Ashley and Angela were the 5-month-old fraternal twins.
Suddenly, Ashley was without her twin.
“Grief is kind of like this shadow that lives over your family,” said Ziegler said. “And my parents were so young so it’s hard to be able to work through that.”
But the caring staff at McMaster supported the family through their intense grief.
“They were awesome,” Ziegler recalls.
At the time, Ziegler didn’t realize how difficult the loss was on her as the oldest of her mom’s five kids.
But time and parenthood has changed her perspective.
“When you become a parent, you just understand the layers and levels of grief of what it’s like to lose a child,” she said as 15 weeks of boxing training drew to a close.
“So, as hard as the boxing journey is, it’s nothing compared to what many parents go through, that my parents have gone through and a lot of my friend’s parents. It’s nothing compared to that.”
These days, Ziegler and husband Ryan live in St. Clements in the twice-expanded cottage Ryan grew up in. It’s also the same home where Ryan, then just a boy, lost his father.
“It was even difficult for Ryan to be in his childhood home when our boys were the same age he was when he lost his dad there,” Ziegler said.
“It’s such a time-stamped reminder of your grief.”
But home is home. It will not be stolen.
Ziegler and Ryan stand steadfast with sons Wesley, 10, and Paxton, 8. The boys, athletic and busy, play soccer and hockey.
Wesley is sweet and gentle and calm, like Ryan. Paxton always come in hot. He’s determined, passionate and competitive.
“A total nutcracker,” Ziegler said. “He takes after me, for sure.”
On Fight Night, they’ll be cheering on mom and the Red Team.
For the Blue Team, Harmony Voisin will face Ziegler.
The two have become great fundraising friends through Champions for Charity.
But, ring instead of diamond, Voisin stands on third base. Home plate is her two-fisted destination.
But you don’t steal home on Ziegler.
“She’s a wonderful human,” Ziegler said of Voisin.
“Now, I gotta punch her.”
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