It’s about my Uncle Paddy. Paddy was my mother’s brother and still lived in Waterford where they grew up. He would spend his vacations with us in Dublin, two weeks at Christmas and two weeks in the summer. He lived alone. Even as a child I remember feeling sorry for him. He seemed so lonely. My two brothers were older, and Uncle Paddy had a special fondness for me. He’d bring me a toy or a book. He used to sneak me the occasional cigarette when I was a teenager. I still wear the dusty pink sheepskin slippers he gave me about 40 years ago.
I was an adult before I learned that at one time Paddy had been married. But his wife left him. I know no more about it. This was obviously a very taboo subject in our family, and indeed the country at the time. She took with her their only child, a daughter, who was about my age. No wonder I was special to him.
When Tim and I were married he was in the hospital, and so was unable to attend our wedding. But the next day we drove down to Waterford to see him. He was so pleased and proud to show off his niece and her new American Naval Officer husband. After I moved here, we would write. At times it was hard to read his letters. You could feel his loneliness between the lines.
Then, on Easter Sunday morning about 30 years ago, I opened the latest letter from Paddy. It was such a different letter. The sun shone warm and sparkling from its pages. He told us that he had moved into ‘an old people’s home’ run by a local community of nuns. They were so nice and so caring, and he had plenty of company under his new roof.
At approximately 75, my Uncle Paddy was no longer a lonely man.
Roisin McKeithan
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