When Doc’s mother died of cancer, his dad was completely lost without his wife of almost 30 years. You’ve heard the expression “a shell of himself”? That described it perfectly. He couldn’t stand rattling around alone in the house, and within a year he met and then soon married his second wife, Grace. It raised some eyebrows, and some ire, in the family, but Doc and I were just relieved and pleased that he found peace and joy again.

They had been married for 17 years when Grace died of cancer three years ago. Dad’s been stronger than the first time he had to bury a wife, but still very lost and lonely.

My father-in-law does not do well being alone. He is a man who needs someone to share his life with. He gets negative, and needy, and as much as I love and respect him, he can sometimes be childish and unreasonable in his loneliness. That’s not a dig at him at all – god knows I can’t imagine EVER living through what he’s lived through. If I were to ever lose Doc, you may as well pad the walls and fit me with a white jacket with extra long sleeves. I’m quite sure I wouldn’t be mature about it one bit.

Dad lives about an hour away from us, but he won’t drive to our house – the traffic on the highway between us is too heavy and stressful for him. And that’s fair – it’s a stretch of road filled with suicidal idiot drivers, and unpleasant for us to drive as well. But the reality is that our lives are very full and busy (with what, it’s not always clear, but they are), and we haven’t given him as much of our attention or time as he would like.

Doc’s dad phones fairly often, just to chat, but it’s not always easy to find anything to talk about. Same with when we go and visit him – after the initial round of “What’s new?”, and “Heard any gossip lately?”, it’s a bit of a chore to fill the spaces. Dad’s world is very small now, and ours is very… different… than his, so there’s little in common. This time of year brings some welcome relief to that, because it’s CFL season (Canadian Football League) and we’re all Roughrider fans, so that gives us one extra thing to talk about, instead of just the weather. We’ve tried to make some extra effort and we’ve gone to his place to watch the games on TV with him more.

One night, after watching the Rider game here at home, Doc phoned his dad to ask him what he thought of it. The phone rang, and rang, and rang. No one home. Strange. Dad has a very predictable and mundane daily schedule. There’s only a handful of people he socializes with, and they go to the local Tim Horton’s for coffee at the same times throughout the day, and he’s home and in bed early at night. He occasionally takes road trips to visit relatives, but he hadn’t mentioned going away when last we spoke.

A little while later, Doc tried phoning again. Ring. Ring. Still no answer.

Huh.

The next time we thought to try again, it was late in the evening, past Dad’s normal bedtime, so we were a little puzzled and concerned, but we didn’t call.

Two hours later, his father phoned us.

“Uh, yeah, you called? Hmm. I was out. Oh, the Rider game? Was that today? Huh, I guess it was, wasn’t it. I forgot all about it.”

Upon hearing this, I roared with delight. It turns out that Dad has a girlfriend.

He’s had PLENTY of women throw themselves at him since he’s been widowed. At the age of 79, slim, healthy, and charming when he wants to be, he’s a hot commodity in the senior community. He’s entertained us with stories of some of the more aggressive and surprising (and enterprising!) old gals who’ve tried to corner him, but he’s an old-fashioned romantic who has no patience for silly games and drama. He just wants someone genuine to love who will love him back.

We were going to go watch the Labour Day classic football game at his place yesterday, and maybe BBQ something for supper. He called me before we left and told me not to worry about bringing food. “My best girl made something for us,” he said with a chuckle.

His “best girl” is named Barbara, and we met her last night. They’ve been “seeing each other” for two months.

They sat on the couch beside each other, not touching, but oh, my god, it was adorable to watch. Where before it had been an effort to find something to talk about with him, now it was an effort to keep a goofy grin off my face. They were like fricken teenagers, with sly smiles and innuendos zinging back and forth between them. I looked at Doc and he shrugged and grinned, thinking the same thing I was: WE’RE the kids – WE’RE usually the ones making googly eyes at each other and nuzzling and touching and forgetting the presence of others. We weren’t ‘uncomfortable’, per se, but boy was it weird to feel like the old married couple in the room.

We asked him the usual conversational questions, and his replies were all variations of the same thing: he doesn’t have time; he’s been so busy. Wait a second, aren’t those our lines?!?

Everything he said had “we” in the sentence, and a glance and a smile at his girl.

I’m still grinning.

Nothing – absolutely nothing – fills me with more joy than seeing the people I love be happy and goofy in love.