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By Sean Dietrich

Joe came from a well-off family. They weren’t uber-rich, mind you, but they were comfortable. He grew up going to decent schools. He wore high-end clothes. He may or may not have worn monogrammed underwear.

When he turned 18, he was going to join the military like his dad, the officer, wanted. But there is a well-known saying in the military: “You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken excrement.” We are who we are.

Joe just wasn’t the military type. He was creative; he wrote poetry, for crying out loud. So he went to college instead.

Turns out, the poet was a great student. And he realized something important during college: He liked teaching.

So he got a job as a private tutor. It was a fun gig. He taught the children of a good family, and life was shaping up nicely.

Things got even better when he met a girl. She was lovely. Charming. They became obsessed with each other, constantly annoying all those around them with PDA.

It wasn’t long before they were engaged. Joe was probably happier than he’d ever been. They started planning the wedding.

Only days before the big event, there was an accident. It all happened so fast. His bride-to-be drowned. The accident happened right in front of Joe. His was the last face she saw.

Joe was catatonic. He had PTSD. Night terrors. He couldn’t stop seeing her face. His friends and family didn’t know whether he would ever get over her.

The worst part of it all, he often said, was the loneliness. Loneliness is the worst sensation in the human experience.

He finally left home for a fresh start. He took a job in a rural town with a tiny population. A town so small, the city-limits signs were nailed to the same post.

He lived in the sticks. He joined a church. Mostly, Joe kept to himself. He was a quiet guy. He spent a lot of time alone in nature.

Also, they say he helped people. He was a handy guy, so he was always at someone’s house fixing something. He was usually helping the disabled folks in town and the shut-ins.

He earned a reputation for being a hard worker. Locals tried to hire him, but he had a personal rule he followed: Joe would only work for those who couldn’t afford to pay. He accepted no money.

You know. Just a really good guy.

Then he met Catherine. They had an instant connection. It was one of those relationships that just worked. They started hanging out a lot. He loved her so deeply it hurt. And just like that, the loneliness was gone.

They got engaged. It was the happy ending of a very long grief process. A ray of sunlight. But shortly before their wedding, Catherine developed pneumonia. He was at her bedside when she died.

After that, Joe was a wreck. They say he threw himself into the work of helping others, if for no other reason than to combat loneliness.

He wrote poetry, too. Lots of it. Late one night, while writing a letter, he wrote one such poem.

The page was dotted with drops of saltwater, smearing the ink in little puddles. The beginning verse of that poem went:

“What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and grief to bear,
What a privilege to carry,
Everything to God in prayer.”

And anyway, now you know the rest of the story.

(Sean Dietrich is a columnist, humorist, multi-instrumentalist and stand-up storyteller known for his commentary on life in the American South. His column appears weekly in newspapers throughout the U.S.)