A member of my husband's family is living quite a weird life.  In addition, he can't wait to call here with news of the death of one of their shared relatives from some dreaded disease.

Today the phone rang, and it was he. The news of the day was that two of their cousins had died. It appears that a week hardly passes when a call doesn't come from this man to notify my husband of the death of someone in their extended family.

This man appears to attract problems. Since the death of his wife, he has lived alone until the past couple of years. At present he is living with his granddaughter who was released from prison, and her friend who also was a jailbird. In addition, his son and his son's best friend have moved in with him.

One has to wonder why this man appears to surround himself with problems when there is more in life that he might pursue.

He is a dog lover, and has four or more dogs at any one time.

When I am home alone and a call comes in from this man, I am mortified. My poor husband will politely respond to the call, and share the bad news he receives from this man.

As he was a fireman, he spends his time listening to fire and police reports, and caring for his dogs.

After his best friend died, he found out that he had been having an affair with this man's wife. This is no surprise, as he had a terrible marriage and wouldn't divorce her for religious reasons.

The man is the family keeper. He constantly speaks to all family members checking on all their health, which is diminishing rapidly.

If you have such a person in your life, I truly empathize with you. After all, one can't help caring when they hear bad news about people they have known all their lives. But what is one to do?  

What we have attempted to learn from this regular experience is to try to chuckle at the craziness of this man's existence, even though it's never fun to be given information that can often be very saddening to hear. 

It comes to mind that perhaps his concentration on the sadness in other people's lives is helpful to him in light of the difficult life he lives himself. We both would like to avoid the annoyance of his calls, but he is family and it only seems fair to listen to what he needs to say.

I'm sure that my reader can understand the predicament we face every time we hear from him, and would also secretly wish that his life was a better one.