don't get lonely

Yesterday in talking to a friend about his life outside of work, I learned that his father's recent death was more painful after his death, as he has had to deal with the crazy woman he was married to. This really reminded me of the story of my wife's grandfather, as there are many similarities. I remember the first time I met granddaddy's wife, who cannot be called grandmother as that name is way too regal for her. She was standing on the sidewalk outside their house next to a folding card table with maybe 25 items of garage sale junk on it. That was odd enough, but what made it really strange was the fact that a 75 year old wrinkly woman was there in a skimpy bikini. I began to wonder what kind of family I as getting involved with!

I used to help granddaddy by mowing his lawn and tending to his fairly large garden or anything else he needed me to do. When I became thirsty I had to go in the back screen door to the kitchen, find a clean glass and get a glass of water. The word "clean" should be emphasized as that was really hard to do. Every time I opened the cabinets I would see tons of cockroaches scurry off in all directions. I would hold the glass up to the outdoor window and normally it would be full of fingerprints. My lovely wife had mercy on me most days and would come by with a glass of water from our apartment for real refreshment. I also remember the visits we would try to have in the evenings after strict refusal to eat with them at their house for supper. We would sit in the living room and watch this women smoke at least 2 cigarettes at the same time and somethings 3 of them. The ashes would drop on the floor as she did her hoop rug, right next to the puddle feces. They had very dated white shag carpet, which had to have all kinds of nasty things we couldn't even see.


Granddaddy was the most pleasant elderly person I have ever met, and it was so hard for us to figure out why he would marry such a loony woman. My wife's father was the only child in the family and has told us many times how neat and super clean his mother kept the house. The explanation he gives is that his father became so lonely after loosing his wife of many years. With so many fine and upstanding eligible women in his church, his loneliness overwhelmed him and miss crazy woman just would not give up. Granddaddy was the dean of agriculture for 30 years at VaTech (many people know him indirectly as they named Dietrick dining hall after him and he was known affectionately as "Deet") and had accumulated some wealth so that was an appealing factor as well. She was a companion for many years, but I would not say a good one and looking back she definitely was the topic of many colorful stories. When granddaddy died, his wife was removed from the house and on cleaning up the house to sell, a large sized U-Haul truck had to be used to remove all of her garage-sale purchased clothes which filled the house, including the basement. Sometimes life is stranger than fiction. I am glad it is only past memories.

The moral of the story is don't be desperate and lonely as that is a bad combination.