An older couple lived down the block from us in Golden, Colorado. They were very private people who had no discernible family or visitors; we found them noteworthy primarily for the three Weimaraner dogs they kept. Over the years that we lived there, this couple aged quite a bit, growing frailer with time. One evening an ambulance wailed to their door, and the gentleman was taken to the hospital.
Wishing I could help, and hoping someone would do the same for my own parents if they needed support, (living so far away as they did, in New York), I stopped by. Since there was no answer to my knock, I left a note describing myself as the mother with three sons on the corner, and offering to give rides, walk dogs, or do anything else I could to help. I never got an answer. Some weeks later he returned home, but no visitors ever did appear at my house in response to my note.
America is an isolating place. It’s the sort of place where you can meet your own neighbors in the supermarket and not recognize them, having only seen them from a distance, as you waved to them from your driveway. There are fewer children, and most of them work, and/or live far away from their parents. For some of us a church or synagogue affords a community, and for some a small town may do the same. But for many of us, apart from home, and perhaps work, there is no “third place,” a place “where everybody knows your name,” as the TV show “Cheers” describes.
Why this is so, is debatable, but perhaps fear is part of it. I believe that our neighbors were truly afraid of the motives of someone offering to help. What was I hoping to get out of it?
It is well known that having relationships with friends and family is good for your health, as is having pets – particularly if you don’t have the former. Many people receive no loving touch, ever. Small wonder that health-care practitioners who actually touch people – like chiropractors, have success rates that are higher than medical doctors. By actually laying on their hands, they are in fact addressing some of the underlying causes of their patients distress – no matter what the condition they actually present with.
Loneliness may be the real disease of our times. It is present all over, from the young mother home with a single child, sitting forlornly in the playground as they run around, to our older citizens, who suffer it quite severely, as with some support they could remain in their own homes, or avoid long-term care placement at the end.
In our next blog I will discuss securing a support system for yourself.
Consider:
Loneliness and isolation pervade our society, but a lack of support is an end result that you cannot afford.
Ask yourself who could help you if you needed help. Then ask yourself how long they could deliver this help.
If the list includes only a few very temporary fixes – like a son or daughter who could take off work and fly out for a week or two, immediately begin to work on changing the situation.
If you have lots of support, and/or are too young to worry about this, look around for who you can be a support to. Chances are they are closer than you think.
