This was the subject header in a forwarded email from ex-husband #2 to my daughter. It had been sent to him and his two siblings from their father who was widowed five years ago and has had a stroke or two since. None of them would take him into their homes, so he packed two small suitcases and drove himself from North Carolina to Georgia, to die. At least that was his plan. When he arrived, he gave all of his money to a couple he knew in exchange for a roof over his head and someone to keep an eye on him. The wife is a nurse; the husband a professional paramedic, plus they run some church that needed a financial boost. Win-win situation until the 87 year old is diagnosed with stage three prostate cancer.
He calls me on the phone to discuss his options (maybe he forgot I divorced his son 36 years ago?). Being the helpful-if-I-can-type, I remind him he was in the military and could get free health care at a Veterans' Hospital. Then he talks a lot about his dead wife and his loneliness and he cries a little. I can't remember what I said, but changed the topic and got him laughing and off the phone. After that, every so often he would call or he'd post some wildly inappropriate personal info on Facebook and my daughter would give me the update.
So this week, I had been telling someone that my ex-father-in-law could speak in tongues, but I wasn't sure if after the strokes he still could. The very next day I get this email. Apparently, the 87 year old was feeling a bit frisky after being asked to lecture in Ohio at some Christian gathering at the estate of another single 87 year old (female). Now I wasn't there, but I've seen the photos and corresponded back and forth with the new groom, who never thought he would find love again after losing his wife of almost sixty years. His three adult children are "processing this information", to which I said, "what's to process?" I told him I'm happy for them both, have the longest honeymoon possible, and profusely thanked him for this time being (not me) the one to "upset the family apple cart and add some new branches to the family tree."