the funeral was this week. Paul was a widower for five years with three young children when he met my mother’s single friend Evelyn. They fell in love and married. It was 1964, my sister Nancy reminded me. In the spring. The spring before I moved to California to live with my dad and step mother for the next five years. But this is about Paul, not me.

They married. It was the first wedding I ever attended. I was twelve, that spring of 1964.

I remember their wedding through foggy spectacles. There was a photo on the lawn. They were a happy couple. He was older. Chubby Checker had a new song, “the Twist” which was played at the reception, and I learned my first dance.

He had three children. Donna, Joyce and Mark. I remember a beach house on the Jersey shore where we visited. The stories include: he only had a garage, but after one particularly bad storm, he lassoed a house in the bay that had been blown away and he had it moved to his lot. Then, he had a house.

Paul had a garage, and he saved things. He had a box of “axe handles,” and a box of “broken axe handles.” He had a box of “string” and a box of “string too short to save.”

His children never accepted Evelyn. He was happily married for 45+ years. I feel sorry for his children, as I know ‘Ev’ was a good woman. Good in her core, and good to her husband and good to the children.

Paul was 92 when he died this autumn. Eve is probably 70-75 now. I know she was lucky to have those years with Paul

R.I.P. Paul Hladchuk, and bless you, Evelyn for saving his life … the second half of his life. Perhaps I’ll be as lucky as you.