Lon turns 79 this October. He lives alone in a small one-bedroom apartment in a quiet corner of Palm Springs, part of a community originally built for people seeking solitude—divorcees, retirees, and those looking for peace in the desert’s calm. Lon has lived in this apartment for as long as anyone can remember, and he's spent his entire life in Palm Springs.
Lon has four children—two daughters and two sons. A doctor, a lawyer, and two others, successful in their own right, though he doesn't share much about them. When he talks about his children, you’d think they were a frequent presence in his life. But for years, they’ve kept their distance.
Instead, it’s his ex-wife, Bonnie, who comes by regularly. Bonnie, who divorced him more than two decades ago, still stops by to bring him groceries and check on him. When he broke his hips, first one winter and then the other, it was Bonnie who took care of him, week after week. Theirs is a complicated dynamic—one part lingering attachment, one part unhealed wounds. It’s as though, despite their divorce, they remain emotionally tied, Bonnie continuing to care for a man who is, in many ways, long gone from her life.
Lon’s pride is bound up in contradictions. He’s quick to boast about his children’s success, but his relationships with them tell a different story. Lon was a drinker, not the casual kind but the destructive kind. He’s shared stories about his years as a drunk, how bad things got. He wasn’t someone you’d want to be around. And it’s no surprise that his children keep their distance now. Those old wounds—born from years of drinking, emotional neglect, and recklessness—aren’t easy to heal. His past continues to haunt his present, shaping the solitude he now lives in.
That solitude, though, is layered with complexity. Lon’s life isn't simply a matter of being left alone. There’s more to it—a story of choices made and the consequences that followed. His ex-wife Bonnie’s continued presence, despite their history, is telling. It’s not just kindness, but perhaps a sense of duty, a recognition of the part she played in his life. She’s a woman who, despite everything, still shows up. In a way, she represents the invisible labor women often perform long after the paperwork is signed, their emotional investments rarely acknowledged. The housework, the caregiving, the silent sacrifices—these things don’t disappear after divorce. For some, like Bonnie, they endure.
Lon holds on to a certain worldview that I imagine has been shaped by hours spent consuming content online, particularly YouTube videos that paint women as predators or as schemers who take advantage of men in divorce settlements. It’s clear that these videos resonate with him. Once, in a conversation, he mentioned a hypothetical man—hardworking, noble, and victimized by a lazy wife who takes advantage of his efforts. But in reality, his life doesn't quite fit that narrative. Bonnie, the woman who left him decades ago, still cares for him, bringing groceries and checking in. I wonder if he sees the disconnect between the stories he believes in and the one he's living.
Lon’s relationships with his daughters also add another layer to this contradiction. He speaks lovingly of them but struggles with the distance they've put between themselves and their father. I wonder how much of his current perspective on women, shaped by his media consumption, would extend to his daughters, if pushed.
There is also his time as a veteran. In his living room, there’s a folded American flag, a quiet, unspoken reminder of his past service. He doesn’t talk about it much, but at his age, it’s likely he served during the Vietnam War, a time that left deep scars on so many men. Lon’s PTSD, like for many veterans, may be a hidden factor in the disarray of his personal life—the drinking, the isolation, the strained family ties.
Lon is a man shaped by many forces—his choices, his traumas, his relationships. His life is a testament to the fact that old age isn’t a blank slate; it’s the sum of everything that came before. His solitude is not just a product of time, but of the life he lived, the people he hurt, the family he estranged. His children’s absence is not a mystery. It’s the slow, painful reckoning with the past that many face as they grow older.
In the end, Lon’s story is about the weight of time, the choices that haunt us, and the people who remain in our lives despite it all. It’s about the invisible labor women often continue to bear and the emotional scars left by war and alcoholism. His ex-wife and his daughters, though distant, are still threads in his life’s fabric, reminding us that love, duty, and regret often exist together, tangled up in the same memories.
Lon may be 79 now, but the real story is about everything that led him here.