When Joanne died 4+ years ago the reality struck "Now, no one else knows......" Knows what? All of the knowledge we shared over 50+ years of relationship. It's lonely being the only one who remembers! That's a huge part of grief...the loss of shared history.
That kind of loss was brought home powefully yesterday when my brother called to tell me that Lloyd Hope died. We grew up together...I can't remember a time I didn't know him. Likely we met in the 'three year old' Sunday School class. Classmates through 8 grades of country school and 4 years of high school we later lived together while I was in my second year at South Dakota State University. Along with his brother Rolf, and David Halvorson, we lived in the basement of Rueben and Doris Skordahl's house in Brookings. Skordahls were also from Sinai.
One of the occasional delights of growing up with Lloyd was staying overnight at each other's homes. Lloyd had two sisters and five brothers. His father, Arnt, an immigrant from Norway was comfortable speaking both English and Norwegian. Staying with Lloyd there were many cows to milk, by hand, morning and evening. Arnt would talke to himself in Norwegian while milking.
After 1958 Lloyd and I went our separate ways, seeing each other occasionally. A few years ago my golf group needed a 4th so we recruited Lloyd. He played with us until our group disbanded in 2017. That's when he moved back to South Dakota.
Sinai High School was tiny. There were 8 in my graduating class, the largest class in school. A week ago two of us, plus another who was in our class for a year, visited Lloyd. Now he's gone 😢. With Lloyd's death three of us remain. That makes me sad!
After an audiology apointment at the VA today I'll return to The Little House.
Takk for alt,
Al
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