Currents News Staff
Staffers at one cemetery in Hawaii are used to seeing one face when they arrive at 6:30 in the morning.
A 93-year-old devoted husband has visited his wife’s grave almost every day for five years.
Like clockwork, Ted Richardson arrives at the Veterans Cemetery at Punchbowl to visit Florence Richardson’s grave.
Six days a week, no matter the weather, he is there.
“I always tell her when I go up there, ‘Payback time,’” said Ted Richardson
Ted uses payback as a term of endearment.
You see, he was 16 and Florence just 14 when they first met in their Pennsylvania town in 1941.
“And I went home and told my daddy that night I saw the girl I was going to marry. He said, ‘What’s her name?’ I said, ‘I don’t know.’ I didn’t know,” he said.
He enlisted in the Marines and fought through World War II.
Her photograph went with him everywhere.
“She was beautiful. I didn’t mind looking at her all the time,” he said.
They married after the war.
Florence worked for the FBI and Ted became a school teacher.
They enjoyed growing old together.
They were married for 72 years until she passed away five years ago.
“I owe her that much. For 72 years she lost her temper only once in 72 years, and that was my fault,” he said.
That’s what he means when he calls the visits payback.
They are thank yous with flowers.
“I use mini carnations because when you first put them in they’re just buds. Then about three days later they open up,” he said.
It takes Ted three bus rides to get from his Waikiki apartment to the foot of the cemetery where security staffers drive him up the hill.
Since her burial at Punchbowl, Ted’s visited Florence’s grave more than 1,300 times.
“They say, ‘How do you keep track?’ I have calendars and I mark them down every day when I come home,” he added.
Ted’s 93 years old and he has planned ahead.
“I’ll keep going as long as I can go. God will tell me when I’ve had enough,” he said.
He arranged with his church to bring Florence flowers once a month when he’s dead and buried beside her.