Albert

My father-in-law and I did not have an easy relationship. I can’t even say that we liked each other because I don’t believe we did. That’s odd, considering how alike we were in so many ways.

This is not to say that we liked the same things. We did not. There was very little overlap of interests. Albert liked to hunt and fish and watch sports. I do not hunt or fish. I never have. It’s not that I dislike sports, I don’t; I just don’t watch them often. Watching sports on TV takes a lot of time. Talking about sports takes even longer. About two hours for every hour watched, if observation of those people I work with serves as a measure.

But Albert and I both liked a good party. Maybe too much so. That goes for both of us.
We’d both been bachelors a long time, and neither of us had been what I’d call a stay at home kind of guy. We both liked our social outings, we both liked to chew the fat into the night.

I’m not sure why he disliked me. Maybe it’s because I stole his daughter away from him. Maybe it’s because I was not a hunter or a fisherman. I doubt that, though. He never once invited me to either. Maybe that’s because he knew that I didn’t do either, so he never asked, sure I would decline. I probably would have, too, but I would have appreciated the offer. Either way, he never asked.
We didn’t get off on the right foot. The first day I met Albert, he barely said two words to me. He was too busy repairing a broken lamp with a length of PVC pipe. When he did speak to me, it was to ask me what I thought of his fix. I thought it ugly. I thought he ought to just throw it out and buy a new one. What I thought is not what I said. “Does it work?” I asked. He didn’t know. He hadn’t plugged it in yet to find out. I was ignored after that, for the most part. I suppose he thought I was just a temporary presence and that I’d go away, after a time. I was just a boyfriend, after all. No need to pay me much mind.

I was confused. I was being introduced by his daughter. You’d think that would have meant something. It didn’t, apparently. I didn’t feel that welcome, and said as much to Bev, so I didn’t go back for quite a while.

Albert and I did not have much cause to cross paths much for some time, after that; not until Bev and I decided to buy a house together.

I was treated with what might have been fury. There was a barrage of questions, none of them friendly. “What are you doing? Aren’t you putting the cart before the horse?” In his mind, we should have got engaged first, then married, then bought a house. That was the time-honoured tradition. And I was breaking that tradition. I couldn’t see how it was any of his business. It wasn’t the ‘50s, after all. I didn’t need his permission to ask Bev anything. I needed hers. And I was getting on in years, years I didn’t have to waste on time-honoured tradition if I wanted to have children. And I did.

Things did not really improve, not really. His anger cooled. But he never really warmed up to me. We came to an understanding, though. He really didn’t have much choice, after all. I’d become a fixture in his daughter’s life. Albert and Alma spent a few weekends with us on Manitoulin. But I was new to the place and wanted to explore, so we were up and about and not there all day, where Albert wanted me to be, so I could pitch in on maintenance. Albert apparently forgot that I’d had a back injury. Fetch and carry and working at height wasn’t my forte, anymore. I did my bit. I cleaned gutters and mowed the lawn and fetched water from the well, replenishing the kitchen and sauna supply. I was less inclined to participate in the physical maintenance of the place so the “boys” wouldn’t have to do anything when they showed up to hunt deer in November, something I was never invited to participate in. The fact that I was on holiday was less important than their being on holiday.

When I popped the question (a moot point, considering we’d been living together for years at that point), I sat Albert and Alma down, and with Bev sat my side, I asked for their permission to marry their daughter, Alma was thrilled. Albert did not say a word. So, I married his daughter without his permission. Like I said, it wasn’t the ‘50s, anymore.

Time passed. Bev and I did not have children. Albert brought that point up once or twice, especially after his son began to have his. “Don’t you think it’s high time you had kids,” he asked. I did. But I wasn’t physically capable of having them. I didn’t have the ovaries for it. I wanted kids, but we were getting on and when it didn’t happen, I considered adoption, and then as more time passed, that ceased to be an option, too.

Then Alma passed. Albert sunk into a funk. It’s hard losing a spouse. I don’t know how hard it can be, but I can imagine how devastating it can be. I suppose it’s like having your entire world pulled out from under you. Even more so when you’ve been together for many decades. He grew morose. He fell into depression.

We’d always spent Sundays with Albert and Alma. We carried on after her passing. I cooked dinner. I was hell bent to make sure he ate, too. I almost never cooked the same thing, either, thinking that he needed variety in taste and diet. Albert told me that I’d make some woman a good wife someday. I let that pass. I let a lot of things pass.

Sadly, Albert never really recovered from Alma’s death. His health suffered. He became diabetic. His hearing, never good for as long as I knew him, grew progressively worse, until we were forever raising our voices in his presence. His knees failed him and he took to a motorized chair. When that happened, his muscle mass faded away. He grew weak. His breathing became laboured.

He put himself on a list for assisted living, but passed when his name came up. His name never came up again.

He rarely left the house in his final years. He became timid. He became ever so lonely. He demanded that we spend more time with him than we already were. He argued when I said that would be difficult. So then it was my fault that his daughter had been taken away from him in his hour of need. I could have been more patient. He was in his 90s, after all. His life was coming to an end and I think he knew it, even if we couldn’t see it at the time.

But I was dealing with my own shit at the time. Not terribly well, I might add.
Before long, he became sick. Pneumonia settled in, and he was hospitalized.
Then he too passed.
I’m sorry to say that his passing was solitary. We did not have the same warning we had for Alma. There was no gathering of the family.
There was only a phone call to tell us that he’d passed away in the night.