It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of Beata Antoszewski on July 27, 2017, after a long and difficult battle with advanced cancer.
Born Beata Malanowicz on March 18, 1962, Beata was raised in Czestochowa, Poland, where she earned her Master’s in Civil Engineering. An engaged participant in student politics, she carved her freedom as an exceptional student and an avid traveller in what was often an oppressive social environment. When Poland’s western borders opened, Beata became one of many talented and educated women who migrated west to begin a new life. Her education unrecognized in the West, Beata found a happy home in the world of accounting working with a number of firms in Thompson over the years.
While her career revolved around wealth and finance, Beata’s priority was always her family: she innately understood that happiness came from time and the people with whom you share it, not the material wealth and small luxuries to which we were often attached. With more experiences than she could express in one lifetime, Beata was above the romantic notions of adventure and adrenaline that so often left us longing for more. Her feet planted firmly on the earth, she did not appear to be merely a visitor in this life, but rather her presence felt like an indisputable fact of nature. It is all the more jarring that of all of us, she would take her leave first.
Beata’s quiet strength was evident throughout her treatment and her decline. Over the two years which she battled her disease, she shattered our expectations at every turn, and her remarkable resilience will forever remain a testament to the inner strength of this humble and understated woman. Nonetheless, our sadness is paired with great relief that she has at last found peace from this terrible disease.
We are grateful for the outpouring of support we have received from Beata’s friends and colleagues over the years. Though we did not always seek help where it was offered, please know that we are nonetheless grateful for your invitations. That it was offered nonetheless means the world to us.
Beata is survived by her husband, Romuald, her sons Kacper and Max, her brother Jerzy, and by her extended family across Europe and the world at large.
