Everlasting Consequences

Everlasting Consequences

He wasn't really my uncle but the brother of my mother's sister's husband but I called him uncle anyway. He was a big part of our lives, coming to live with us several times through the years, staying a few months or a couple years and then leaving again, only to return again some day. I don't know whether he moved so much because of job changes or some other reason, but I always enjoyed seeing him.

Will was unlike any other man I ever knew. He was so gentle and kind, he could and would listen to the problems of a little girl. Maybe it was because he knew about pain.

He was a very handsome man. He had dark wavy hair, fair skin, bluish gray eyes and was tall and lean. He looked good in a suit or mining work clothes, face clean or face dirty. He was very quiet spoken, having little to say except when it was important. He mostly listened. Sometimes he whittled when he listened, little birds and animals, sleek and smooth when he finished. He did it so patiently, whittling tiny amounts of wood away, day in and day out. I was always so surprised when a little creature would seem to pop out of nowhere.

In the early years, I mostly talked about me. As I grew older, though, I began to wonder about Will and his life when he wasn't with us. I found out he was married to a woman he hadn't lived with in years, and they had three children. That just blew me away. Why did he live with us and not them? Why indeed? I asked, but he would always change the subject.

Finally, I asked my aunt. She said "because his wife is crazy."

"Crazy?'

"Yes, she said. She rants and raves and screams at him for no good reason. When he takes her groceries, he has to put them on the porch and go away quickly or she won't come out and get them. She sometimes won't let him see the children. Whatever she can do to make him miserable, she does. I've even seen her walk out on the porch half dressed, screaming at him."

"But why?"

"Well, when your uncle Will was a very young man, not married too long," she began, "he had a few dates with (I'll not tell the name, let's call her L). She was supposed to be a Christian woman... wore her skirts to the ankle, long sleeves, high in the neck, hair all tied and twisted on top of her head, no make up. Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, no mam. On top of that, she was married. It didn't last very long, but it happened. I don't know how, but Zelda found out about her. Maybe Will told her himself. It would be like him. Anyway, after that, Zelda kicked him out of the house and that's how it has been all these years. He takes her most of his paycheck every week, buys her groceries at the company store, and maybe once a year she will talk to him or let him talk to the kids. Crazy damn life, if you ask me, but who asks me? Now, enough of this, go get me a cup of coffee and mind your own business."

I had a million unanswered questions, but I knew how to take a hint and let it go... for a while... but it stayed on my mind a lot. Did he love Zelda so much that he was grieved over his betrayal? Did he think it was so unfair to her that he gave up the rest of his chances for happiness to "pay" for his sins? Did he love her so much that he couldn't love anyone else? Why didn't he get a divorce, forgive himself and start over? Wasn't he lonely? It just drove me crazy that he did nothing but keep on keeping on. Then again, it doesn't surprise me. When Will committed to something, he committed. And, again, he was a very patient man.

Time rolled on and Will never changed that I could tell. When I left home, at age 18, during our last talk when he gave me some very good advice on living in the "big city," I asked him some of my questions.

"Uncle Will," I asked, "why don't you divorce Zelda and find a woman to love you and be good to you? Why not? It's been a long time. Whatever you did, it couldn't have been that bad. Surely, after all this time, God has forgiven you even if she hasn't?"

"Oh,' he said, "why do it after all this time? I'm fine, really. I get along just fine, and there's no need for it, none at all."

Well, that ended that, it seemed.

I saw uncle Will only at funerals through the next ten years or so, never having a chance for one of our talks. I heard that aunt Zelda got cancer, bone cancer, very painful. Guess who sat at her bedside day in and day out as she lay dying? Yes... uncle Will. Through the long months, she had few visitors except him and the children who lived close by. She had been so bitter through the years, there weren't many friends, or that's what my aunt told me. She said they patched things up, and Zelda asked him to forgive her. I hope that's true, and I think it might be true.

A year or so after Zelda died, uncle Will met a sweet, pretty woman in Bluefield, West Virginia and they got married. They lived together for a few years before he died. I hope she made him happy.

I never got all my answers though. I don't think anyone knew the real answers. I know this. To this day, I wonder at a woman who had such a good man and just threw it all away because she couldn't forgive a mistake, one he obviously regretted very much. She lived alone all those years too. I felt some sorrow for her, but I loved him so much I really couldn't forgive her for a very long time.

Did she think she was perfect and sinless? Or was she just cruel?