Hope helps him cope

In a span of eight months, Ralph Short lost three people who were near and dear to him, as well as his dog.

In May, Leslie, the youngest of his adopted sons, died of a ruptured vein, Ralph Short said. Leslie was 45.

In July, Peggy, Ralph Short’s wife , died, followed weeks later by the passing of Ralph Short’s long-haired dachshund. And, on Dec. 14, his older adopted son, John, died at 59. Ralph Short believes that a heart attack felled him.

The 87-year-old Ralph Short lives in a mobile home in Costa Mesa that’s been emptied, through this series of deaths, of the people he loved.

He closed his eyes as if wanting to block out what it feels like to lose his sons and wife, and his voice trembled as he spoke about them.

“It’s hard for me to talk about him,” Ralph Short said of Leslie, as he placed his right hand to his mouth. “I don’t mind crying a little.”

Of his wife, Ralph Short said: “We were married 65 years. Wonderful marriage. It’s just ... you don’t like to lose your family, that’s all.”

And of his oldest son, Johnny, the avid reader, he said, “He was religious and very kind.”

Ralph Short could have been angry at the world after losing his wife, two sons and dog in rapid succession.

But somehow Ralph Short has kept a positive outlook on life and keeps on going.

He has been reaching out and helping his neighbors in the Playport Mobile Village, a senior community.

“I’ve become a new man,” he said. “And a different man. Before, I was involved in family. Now, I’m involved with the world. I meet a stranger on the street and I try to cheer them up.”

Ralph Short took care of his wife toward the end of her life, when she was frail and bedridden.

Now that she’s gone, Ralph Short is taking care of others.

He shops for his elderly neighbors at Playport, including helping a woman in her 70s, who, he said, always drives people away.

“I help her every day by talking with her,” he said. “I give her conversation.”

He does so even when she can behave bitterly toward him.

“She raked me over the coals before,” Ralph Short said. “She gave me a hard time when I was bringing her home from the hospital.

“I forgot her wheelchair. She just laid into me with anger and put me down and swore at me. But I overcame that because I know that’s irrelevant to her life.”

Why irrelevant?

Because “she’s a person,” Short replied.

Lea Harris, who manages Playport, expressed amazement at Ralph Short’s outlook on life, describing him as unstoppable.

“He’s just doing,” she said. “And he does all the time. He does for other people all the time.”