Single Seniors and Isolation

I recently read a piece on a friends Facebook timeline about the “tragedies” of older single adults. I don’t know that I would refer to them so much as tragedies as I would an unfortunate state of affairs. Additionally, I would not even attempt to assign any order of importance to these unfortunate circumstances in which most single senior adults must deal. For some finances are the major issue in their life. For others it might be loneliness.

However, whatever the specific concerns and their order of importance the one common denominator that seems to permeate the life of single seniors is isolation. This feeling of isolation only serves to exacerbate the other issue they face.  They have spent their whole life solving most of the issues of need and want in their life. Much of what they did supplied a sense of significance that every human needs. 

Much of their life, and yours as well, has been spent in a search for significance. When we were young it may have been found in our school relationships and activities. Later we found it in our job or profession. Many found it in raising their families. We may even have found it in our service through our churches or other service institutions. Sadly, little in what we did all of our life prepares us for the aloneness of being a single senior.

Personally, I know what it is like as a single senior to try and find significance. It takes a lot of faith in God to not fall into the trap of believing that you no longer matter. In my case I spent my whole life with people around . . . not underfoot but around. Beginning with my wife who was at my side for 60 plus year and almost 55 of those as my wife, my companion, my confidant, and my lover. She gave me that sense of significance I craved and that simple “aroundness” that I needed. I frequently felt I could take on anything as long as she was with me. I think most seniors feel that way about each other. Then the thing you dread the most happens. Your spouse takes their heavenly flight and suddenly you are alone. Alone in a way and to a depth you have never before experienced. But have no fear, should the Lord tarry, “your day will come” and you will be reminded by well-meaning folks that you are not alone because the Lord is with you.

As strange as it may seem to those not living that experience being told that the Lord is with you, while true, is not particularly reassuring. To be sure, those single seniors who are Christians know that the Lord is with them. They have spent their entire lives trusting Him and in fellowship with Him. Very few single senior Christians need to be reminded that “the Lord, the LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” (1 Chronicles 28:20) They have lived their entire lives trusting the Lord.

But after hearing it again and again it takes on the meaning, whether true or not, of “I don’t have time for you.” Single seniors begin to feel like the perpetual bridesmaid but never the bride or the young wife who is the only one in her group of girlfriends still without a child. We are social being. God created us that way. Hence after creating man God observed that it was not good for a man to be alone so enter stage left . . . woman. As long as man and woman lived and interacted with increasing unity their basic social needs were met. That is why married seniors fair better than single seniors. They have each other. Single seniors need social interaction, mental stimulation, positive emotional stimulus and physical contact to remain vibrant human beings.

I sometimes think that is the reason God allowed second marriages after the death of a spouse. It is to fill that need for basic social interactions. Until sin entered the picture it appears that death was not a part of man’s existence. They were to spend eternity becoming one. Problem solved. But alas, sin did become a part of man’s experience and with it came death and aloneness. 

I suppose there are a multitude of reasons (those reasons can just as easily be excuses) for the feeling of isolation experienced by single seniors. The one I hear the most is that people are just too busy to check in on those who live alone.  

It is just a sad fact of life that lifelong friends are either in the same boat or fast getting into that boat. They are hampered by health issues, financial issues, or great distances that pretty much confine them. Sadder yet is when senior singles family members (understand children & grandchildren) are busy with their own lives and seldom think about their single family member. All of these are legitimate reasons and offer a good explanation, but they are also excuses used to salve our conscience. All of this contributes to the feeling and belief of the single senior that, “I just don’t matter. If I died today, who would care or even notice?”

All I can say here is that regarding the single seniors in your life you must be intentional, or you will unintentionally be using excuses instead of giving reasons.  

Depression is often a result of extended isolation.  Depression can lead to other health issues.  Just because a single senior is still working does not mean they don’t get lonely and long to see, hear, and touch the people they love. What can we do to help? 

It Was Never About The Game

I remember seeing on television either in a commercial or a news item a series of pictures of the same man with his wife attending a professional football game over a number of years. Actually, it was more than just a picture. It was a series of photographs the shows them aging as the years passed and they sat in the same seats the same ball game. Clearly season ticket holders.  

In the first three or four photographs both the husband and the wife were smiling and pointing and happy and even appeared have aged very little. The next-to-last the photograph showed the couples together the man clearly was ill but still they were laughing and they were smiling as they watched their favorite teams play. Then in the last frame the man was not in the picture. The wife was in her usual seat watching her favorite team but is this photo the smile was not present. She seemed disinterested in watching the game or even being there in the first place.

I was talking with a friend who like myself had recently lost their spouse about the fact that so many things that I used to do did not appeal to me as they once did. I didn't seem to have any interest in eating, going anywhere or even doing anything. Remarkably, she said to me that she was experiencing the very same thing. There’s something strange about routines and that is they are not as routine as perhaps we might think. The places we go and the things that we do have a meaning beyond the place on the thing itself. Something else gives them meaning and purpose.

I remember Susan and I always talked about the fact that we had neither one ever been to the Grand Canyon. It was something we wanted to do and something we probably should have done but we didn’t. As I spoke with the lady mentioned above I related this failure to make that trip a reality. As I told her about it I said, “I believe that if Susan and I had taken that trip to the Grand Canyon I would have stood with her on the rim of the canyon and slowly taken in the scene unfolding  before us as I could.” Then I would have turned to her and said, “What an amazing and wonderful thing God has done in this arid land.” I think she might have replied, “Indeed, it is as awe inspiring as when we stood and viewed the three sisters in the Blue Mountains of Australia”

However, if I were to go there by myself today stand on the rim of that chasm in the earth as I surveyed it from one end to the other I would probably just say to myself, “It’s just another big hole in the ground.”

I remember hearing at more weddings than I’d like to admit the minister say to a young couple somewhere during the ceremony that now that they were husband and wife the joys of life would be doubled because there are two to share the joy. He would go on and say that because they were now husband and wife the burdens and sorrows of life would be more easily carried because there was now two to carry them. 

In the opening chapters of Genesis God says it is not good that the man should be alone. So he created woman to be alongside of man to make up what is lacking in the man. I think this goes to one of the reasons God created woman and brought her to man and declared that they are to become one flesh. God knew that that life is better when it is shared. 

Most of our lives are spent focused on the things that we do, the places that we go and the recreation in which we engage. However, while we are focused on things and places and activities something else is transpiring. And because this something else is happening quietly the places and things and activities have an importance beyond themselves.

With the passing of time we are going to realize that it wasn’t the games that we played and it wasn’t the things that we did go to the places where we went but it was the people with whom we did those things. At least I hope that's the case.

The truth is the day is coming for all of us as illustrated in that first paragraph about this old man and old woman that we will realize it was not the game but the people with whom we watched the game;  It wasn’t about the house we owned. It was the people who in it;  It wasn’t about the coffee we drank, but for whom you made and shared it;  It wasn’t all the work we put in at the office, but who was laboring along side of us; And, it wasn’t the dinners prepared for us, it was who brought you your plate.

It is important that we discover sooner rather than later that the time people give us is time in their life they will never get back. It is the people with whom we shared life that gave meaning to all those things we do. It is when the people with whom we shared life are no longer present that the things that we did together lose much of their value. They become memories to never be repeated. 

This became a reality to me when Susan, my wife a 54½ years took her Heavenly flight. It was then that I came face-to-face with a reality that much of what defined and gave meaning to my life gone. We had become what scripture calls one flesh and now a part of who I am tis no longer present with me. In a mysterious way when Susan left a great deal at what I did everyday for all those years no longer had significance or meaning.

You see it was not the game that we watched it was the fact that we watched it together and that’s true of every other activity that we shared. 

Because this is true I think it’s important that we learn early on in life that the most valuable thing we give to each other is our time. Time is the most valuable asset that we have. It’s the one possession that when we spend it we will never get it back. So we need to learn to value our time and the time others give to us. We must focus on people because relationships are the real value in life.

I have spent more than 60 years as a Baptist preacher/pastor and I have stood by with many a person as they lay dying and I yet to hear the first person say, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office.” Nope . . . .its all about the people in our lives and especially that special someone who gives our lives meaning.