Keith Davison had been married for 66 years when his wife Abby passed away. His Minnesota home plunged into silence and the 94-year-old retired district court judge felt the weight of his loneliness heavily.
“You cry a lot but that’s just the way it is because she’s not here,” he told Kare TV. “April 2016, that was when I lost her.”
Fast forward little more than a year and his days are no longer empty. Davison has built a pool in his backyard for the neighbourhood kids and every day is filled with the sounds of happy noise.
“I knew they’d come,” he chuckles.
His neighbours thought he was joking when he first floated the idea but when they saw him marking out his backyard they realised he was serious – and then the concrete trucks showed up.
While Davison and his wife had three children, they did not have any grandchildren – however in a way Davison has gained a whole community of grandchildren, with many of the neighbours and their kids visiting daily since the pool’s completion last month in July.
And while adding a pool to your yard that’s just short of 10 x 5 metres in size will not be everyone’s answer to happiness, for Davison it makes perfect sense. We like his style.
