I remember this old man when i was a kid, Uncle Teddy we used to call him, nice old man. Everyone I knew liked the guy and I knew a lot of people, living up north in a small seaside town makes it pretty easy. We didn’t have much going on there so getting to know people was something just to pass the time.
Anyway, Uncle Teddy, nice old man, would see him every day walking around the neighborhood greeting everyone he passed by. He called everyone he met Sir or Ma’am, always had smile on face like he solved life’s problems along the way and was coasting till the end.
If he met one of us kids, he’d offer some candy maybe get an ice cream if the weather called for it, we all loved the guy. In those days, you didn’t think much about a guy who’s essentially a stranger offering kids sweets but adults didn’t know better, so how could we have?
As the years went on I grew older and I started seeing Uncle Teddy less and less, maybe I just got too wrapped up in my own stuff back then, being a teenage meant that everything I did was important and screw everyone else, teenagers are dumb. The times I did see Uncle Teddy, I noticed he was walking a bit slower than usual, The guy was getting older so it was kind of normal and sad to know what was going on. He still walked around town, greeting people, offering the kids candies and stuff.
This one day, I got bored, decided to follow him around, see how he spends his day.
So I got up early packed a bag with some food and stood on the side road just opposite his house. Waited for what felt like an hour until I heard the front door open with a short creek. After he closed the door behind him, he stood in front staring straight ahead. I thought he was looking at me at first, but he didn’t seem to react. A second later he took a few steps down his porch and turned left, he walked down his road meeting people along the way, greeted as always. Some folks greet back some just lift up a hand or whatever they can muster and walk on by. Teddy kept walking until he got to the stores went inside some and saw how they are. Uncle Teddy knew a lot of people. I kept following and it was pretty boring after a while, all he did was walk around town and greet folks. He eventually made his way back home and I saw the lights went on. I called it a day.
The next morning though, I got this weird feeling and I decided to follow him again. Took my bag, still crammed with food to keep be going and I waited at his place.
Didn’t have to wait long and he was back on the street greeting and making his way around town. I followed him for a few days after that and it was weird. He did the exact same thing each day. I started to take note or any differences and their hardly was any, besides the people and variations in conversation. He took the exact same route, went to the same stores and spoke mainly to the same people. It felt like each day was repeating over and over. After a week of following him and taking notes, I decided to ask my parents about Uncle Teddy and his walks.
My father knew he used to be a Soldier in a war, not sure what war but some war, my father never really took much interest in other people’s personal life, to “each his own” he always said. My mother though, she knew something kinda nuts, almost unbelievable.
Uncle Teddy can’t remember the day that past. Every morning he would get up, and take a walk through the town, it would be like his first time doing it, knowing full well he probably did it thousands of times before. He just could never remember doing it or the people he met or anything of that day. He took each day, as it came, checked himself to see how old he got and took a walk. He knew he was slowly losing his memory, but he didn’t want anyone to know about it. He pretended that everything was okay. The thing is though, you can only keep that secret for so long, people started to notice and figured it out, but what they did was either really cruel or heartwarming depending on how you look at it. They chose to let him go on pretending, if a conversation repeats, that fine, they will repeat that conversation. To let him live his life until the end. An entire town did this, kids grew up thinking he was just a happy old man giving out candy. It was a crazy thing to hear and to be told to keep it to yourself.
Uncle Teddy eventually passed away years later, I was already in college,my mom said they found him at home in his bed, he had a smile on his face.
Crazy story right?
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