Pat Rollins, Sunday Scribe

Pat Rollins
  Sunday Scribe



Loneliness Makes Us Vulnerable

   My husband Mike and I were traveling along a dusty local road.  Up ahead we saw this elderly gentleman that we knew  in his front yard.  Mike pulled over to say hello.  He was trimming weeds and had a For Sale sign up.  “What’s new?” Mike wanted to know. “Well, the old man said, “Did you know I got married again?”  “No kidding,” Mike responded. “When did that happen?”
“About a year ago,” the old man said. ”I got real lonely after the death of my wife.  You know we were married for over fifty years.” “That’s a long time with one woman,” Mike replied.
   “So, how come your house is for sale?” Mike asked.  “There are too many memories here.  It is hard for both of us with all these memories.  But we tried living in the Valley for a while.  That didn’t seem to work, so we moved back up here. But all these old memories are making it harder for us, so I decided to put the house on the market.  When we get it sold, we will move back to the Valley again.”
   “This is amazing,” Mike said.  “How old is she?”  “She’s in her eighties too,” the old man said.  “Well, how did you meet each other?  Was it through church or friends?  “Nope.  We met on the internet,” the old man said. “That’s amazing,” Mike replied.  “Well, we wish you and your new wife the best.”  Then we headed on down the road.
   We spoke about how times had changed.  People can meet on the internet these days, and some of those meetings can turn into marriages.  Obviously, age was not a factor.  Then we forgot about that old man, except if we happened to be driving by his house.  The For Sale sign remained out front, so we knew he had not been able to sell his house yet.  It was a very well kept house, and there were beautiful roses and other flowers in the yard and along the fence.  If the times were not so hard, he would have been able to sell it a long time ago.
   A few months later Mike was by himself and happened to be in the old guy’s neighborhood again.  There he was, tending to his plants in the yard.  So Mike pulled over to ask him how things were going.  “Well, you know I got divorced?” the old man said.  “No!” Mike replied.  “I had no idea.  What in the world happened?”  “Well, I kept missing things from the house,” he responded.  “I would keep looking for this or for that.  Things just kept disappearing, and I finally realized she was stealing from me.  I hated to think it, but it was true.  So I threw her out.  Tossed her into the street and told her she better never show her face around here again or I would file police charges against her.”  “I’m sorry to hear of it,” Mike said. “I guess you can’t be too careful these days.”
   The old man never said it, but we guessed that it would be a cold day in hell before he would marry someone he met on the internet again.  Loneliness makes us vulnerable.  It can affect our otherwise solid judgment. We hope he can find the companionship he longs for at a church, or the Elks Club or meet her through friends they have in common.

              
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