Keith Davison misses his wife, Evy. She died of cancer in April 2016, just four days before their 66th wedding anniversary.
“You can’t imagine what it’s like,” the 94-year-old retired district court judge told KARE 11 TV. “You cry a lot. That’s just the way it is, because she’s not here.”
And though Davison can’t bring himself to remove Evy’s watch from her nightstand, he is feeling a little less lonely these days. In the spring, Davison, who lives in Morris, Minnesota, installed a 32-foot long and 9-foot deep swimming pool in his backyard and opened it to all the kids in his neighborhood. “I knew they’d come,” the widow told KARE 11.
And he was right.
Jessica Huebner and her four children are among the dozens of regulars dippers at Davison’s pool club. “It’s him spreading joy throughout our neighborhood for these kids,” Huebner told KARE 11. “He never had any grandkids and so we’re like, ‘Well you kind of adopted our whole neighborhood of kids. These are your grandkids.”
Davison couldn’t be happier with his investment (the average in-ground swimming pool costs $21,919, according to home improvement site Fixr.com). “I’m not sitting by myself looking at the walls,” the widow explained. “What else would you think of doing where you could have a whole bunch of kids over every afternoon?”
