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.
#################################################################
Posts
