In a Lonely Place

Through the years, I’ve watched older people deal with the realities of a corrosive loneliness. Some join a community or move in with family (if they are willing) because they have lived communal lives. Others, those who have lived more alone, often seem to retreat into a private, quiet world. I suspect that becoming a joiner or a recluse has a lot to do with personality.

Sid’s sister, for example, is a joiner. She is in her mid-eighties and lost her husband about six years ago. For several years she hung on to the family apartment until she accepted that she needed to be closer to her children. She is a gregarious soul, active and in good health, so she rented an apartment in a retirement complex where the meals are provided, the residents play Wii games, and they get together for bridge and excursions. Connecting with others is a logical extension of who she has been all her life: she has always volunteered and participated in community activities. Predictably, she has made friends quickly and I expect that she will soon be volunteering on residence committees.

My mother-in-law, on the other hand, was an extreme recluse. She had always been a difficult, somewhat demanding personality, but it was exacerbated by the loss of first her son (my husband) and then her own husband. She withdrew from the world and blamed her loneliness on her children. She complained constantly about what she saw as their lack of attention. When they did make the long trek out to see her, the visits were so laced with her bitterness and recriminations that she drove them further from her life. Curiously, she incurred the very thing that she so much resented. In the end, and very sadly, she died alone in her bed, having driven everyone away.

I suppose I am some form of a modified joiner. When I lost my husband ten years ago, I went into the wasteland. At first, I numbly focused on getting through the day. I hung on for the first anniversary of his death when I expected things to get better. In fact, they became worse. I was forced to redefine myself in that second year as single. I was no longer part of a couple and I was treated differently. People moved on with their lives and expected me to move on with mine. Couples who had been friends slipped away as they preferred activities with other couples. No one wanted to hear about how it was difficult sometimes for me to even get out of bed. They wanted to hear about fresh starts and new beginnings and how well I was coping. Finally in the third year, I realized that I was desperately lonely and forced myself to reach for life. I had to. I was still too young to sit waiting for the phone to ring. It was then that I was fortunate to find a good man and to have the courage to start another relationship. I imagine that people who know me well expected that this is what I would do. My choices in life have always been to take action—not always well considered, I will admit—but to surge forward nonetheless. I suppose I joined up again with life.

I wouldn’t have thought much about loneliness if I had not been forced to by being widowed. Loneliness the last issue many of us will deal with and yet it is the one we think about the least. We buy insurance for long-term health care should we become incapable of taking care of ourselves. We buy life insurance to leave something to our heirs. But we do not think about what we should do if we are one day left on our own and grateful for a few words of conversation from the cashier at the supermarket. I hope never again to have to deal with being by myself in the terrible way that life was stripped from me after a marriage of thirty-eight years. But if I am, I can only hope that I will once again reach out for life, valuing the great gift that life is and not squandering whatever remains of it.