The House Where It's Impossible to Be Lonely

Even though I've always been a friendly and outgoing guy, like everyone, I have had bouts of loneliness.  I've been fortunate, though, that I could appreciate the feelings, as part of being alive, and not let them drag me into outright depression.

Wifey and I bought our first house together in September of '86. I was working as a law clerk, awaiting word from the Florida Bar as to whether I would keep my first job with a humorously anti-semitic boss, and Wifey was making good money as a cut flower broker. We made the $8650 down payment with proceeds of a gift my mother made to us -- $10K to each of her three kids, back when high interest rates kept her in retirement high cotton. We moved in with our little bit of apartment furniture, 2 bikes, and my beloved record collection and "stereo" system.

I remember I greatly disliked the powder blue color of our dining room, and one day, in probably early '87, decided to take the day off work to paint the room. I figured it would take about 8 hours. It took 13, and I did a crappy job -- plenty of streaks on the Dade County pine open beam ceiling. I made a pledge, which I have kept these past 3 decades, that I would never paint again...

Anyway, a few months after moving in, I surprised Wifey with our first marital dogs - Alfred, an adorable cute cocker, whose wrinkled face looked like the director Hitchcock, and Midnight, a black lab who grew to be 95 pounds and would have made an excellent working dog, with his boundless energy. The following year, we brought home another puppy -- this one a gorgeous baby girl, who was initially licked on the head by Midnight -- starting, I think, D1's lifetime love of and obsession with, dogs.

I remember sitting home one stormy summer day --D1 was probably a year old. The skies were black and gloomy. D1 was playing with the dogs, as Wifey watched a movie on our VHS player, and I was reading. A thought struck me: we had created the house where it's impossible to be lonely. Between loving, furry dogs, and not so furry D1, there was always a generator and receiver of love.

In September of '90, it was time to move up, to a larger house. Wifey and our friend Sandy, a realtor, found one almost exactly 2 miles west of our first house.This one cost $140K, and had a bigger yard and 4 bedrooms.  In February of '92, we brought home another puppy -- D2 -- and kept the tradition going.  My Mom would visit, and say how warm the house always made her feel -- we tried, despite 2 little ones, to keep tensosity at a minimum.

Well, Mother Nature injected a LOT of tensosity in August of '92, by sending Andrew to literally blow the house down around us. It set into motion a peripatetic time for us -- moving to an apartment on Brickell Key for several months, and then into my in laws' house in Kendall, when they moved to Century Village in Pembroke Pines. We were there until March of '94, when our rebuilt house was ready, and soon after moving back, brought ANOTHER puppy home -- this one a sweet Yellow Lab the Ds named Honey.

Now it was REALLY impossible to be lonely -- with 2 adorable girls, and three dogs...

After moving my family 3 times in such a short period, I made the proclamation that I was stating in our house on SW 136 Terrace FOREVER. Forever turned out to be 6 years -- we moved into Villa Wifey, and have been here since. Although the Ds haven't lived her, except for college/grad school and visits home from NYC stays since 2010, it remains a very un-lonely house -- with at least 2 dogs always underfoot.

Well -- today -- D1 sent a video of her house, in Shorecrest. Baby was being gently rocked in a bassinet, while the Spoiled Spaniel sniffed around. The sweet voices of D1 and Joey were heard -- talking to their beloved baby boy. I told D1 she had arrived in that same, wonderful spot in life -- a house where it's impossible to be lonely.

Storms will come, of course. Their house is strongly built -- all concrete, with impact glass. But, they are only a few short blocks from the Bay -- so will have to leave in a Cat 3 or higher hurricane.

There will be other storms, too, of course -- that's what life is. But when you realize that you're not the most important person -- you have responsibility to care for others even before yourself -- well, to me that is the antidote to loneliness. I am so glad D1 has found that...