Grief can come in many forms. When some people lose a loved one, moving sometimes helps ease the pain. The opposite can be said for others. Sometimes, looking back at old memories helps put people at ease. But 94-year-old retired judge Keith Davison did something a little out of the ordinary when it came to honoring his late wife. He built a swimming pool.
In April of 2016, Keith had to say goodbye to Evy, his wife of 66 years. He noticed how much quieter the house became after her death. That feeling of being alone was a lot for him to bear.
That's when he realized that perhaps he should open his Morris, Minnesota, home to guests — namely, the neighborhood children.
Keith was profiled for a program on Minnesota's KARE 11, where he talked more about his special project — and the love he had for his wife. "You just can't imagine what it's like," he said, regarding his grief. "You cry a lot. That's just the way it is because she's not here."
In trying to figure out how to make his life a little less quiet, Keith realized that his neighborhood offered no place for people to swim. So he decided that he'd be the one to change that. He started constructing a pool on his property for others to openly use.
Keith's neighbor, Jessica Huebner, thought that Keith was joking when he initially told her about the plan. It seemed a bit ridiculous, or more like a pipe dream.
"This spring when I saw him marking the yard, I told my husband, he's really going to put a pool in his backyard," she said.
Since the pool opened back in 2017, she's taken all four of her kids there regularly. "It's him spreading joy throughout our neighborhood for these kids," Jessica stated. And she's right — he created something that everyone in the neighborhood could appreciate.
It's also joyous for Keith since, while he has adult children of his own, he doesn't have any grandchildren. So now he can enjoy the company of the neighborhood kids to help him stay lively. That said, everyone in the neighborhood has welcomed Keith as a member of their own family.
As Jessica once told Keith, "You kind of adopted our whole neighborhood of kids; these are your grandkids." His pool has only one set rule — kids need to be accompanied by a parent. Based on pools often being a safety hazard, that's an important one that everyone should have no trouble following.
Of course, Keith uses the pool as well long after the kids are gone. But being able to spend time with them during the day has helped the house be a little less silent.
"What else would you think of doing where you could have a whole bunch of kids over every afternoon?" he said.
The pool helped save him from being overcome by grief. While there's no money to be made from such an endeavor, he's just happy that he's found something to do that gives him a reason to go outside and be social. But it's a big reminder that there are still so many good people out there.
Sometimes, the best way to handle grief is to realize how big the world really is. By inviting the neighborhood over, Keith gets to be a part of everyone's story. As the kids grow up, they'll always remember swimming at his house and having pool access whenever they wanted. His stories will be told for yet another lifetime.
His act of kindness will always be appreciated. And by helping the neighborhood, he's also helping himself. Without a doubt, his wife would have been so proud of the way he decided to give back.
