My 80 year old inlaws and the SWAT team ...

Ok ... so my father in law is 82. He is very sweet, very old fashioned and extremely well mannered. I adore him. He is absolutely precious. Every Sunday he sends out a family letter to absolutely every one in his family. He never forgets and it always comes about 4ish. He is very scheduled. It is really cute. So, I skim the letter each week since they are pretty much the same. A greeting, the weather, their health, the mail they have received, happenings at church, family functions ... bla, bla, bla. So today the letter came, as always, and I am busy skimming it. So, in the third paragraph I see the following ...

We had another tragedy right next door. We had a very nice couple about our age right next door. She has had a great deal of back trouble that had pretty much crippled her and he was recently diagnosed with liver cancer. They brought him home from the hospital Friday. That afternoon he called the police to say he had shot his wife and by the time they got here, he had shot himself. It was very hard to take for us, as we were fond of them. We first knew of it when the police came to our door (like a SWAT team) asking if we had heard shots. We later learned what had really happened. So it has been a sad time around here.

So ... WTH ... my sweet little inlaws never mentioned anything. This is the kind of thing you usually tell your kids. I feel terrible for them. I will say it will be a while before I just "skim" his letters once again. What if I had missed the whole thing?

MPM