At the top of our house, high in the attic is our guest room. It wasn’t always that way.
Before…a long time ago, it was Harold’s tool shop. Grandchildren would sneak up there to play hide and seek and search through the mountains of memorabilia. This was where you would find a stack of ancient, dusty Biggles books forgotten in a cobwebbed corner, yellowing and ripe for reading. If the attic was historical, the second floor was where we lived. Here you would find our small bedroom that opened up to a beautiful view of the canal and the cold hills beyond, starkly contrasting with our bathroom, which was positively tropical. Harold had installed heated floors which kept it sauna-like at all times of the year. Everyone loved that bathroom. If you walked down the polished wooden stairs to the first floor, you would reach my piano, the dining room, and further still, the long kitchen which had a strange slope in the floor that slid towards the backdoor and the canal beyond. No end of plucky youngsters had perfected their skid on that shiny linoleum with the more accomplished experts sliding almost from door to door.
I talk about all of this in the past tense and yet it is all still here. As am I.
“Have you ever considered leaving?” my grandson asked me, perhaps acutely aware of how lonely this all sounds.
It is a large space for one person. I know this.
“Wouldn’t you be happier with people your own age?”
I have been asked this before too. I wouldn’t.
While I am deeply fortunate to have many friends who are also elderly, many of us, myself included, have to deal with the trials of this blessing. I’ll be pointed, ill health. It would be difficult to be around that all the time, I think. More than once I have wondered if a sickness was the beginning of the end. On one occasion I was so poorly that I lay in bed and was sure I was coming to the end of it all. However, when I opened my eyes I saw Margaret Spurrett, Harold’s neighbour from the 1930s standing over my bed with a rather stern look gazing down at me. I was mildly surprised.
“What did you think of that then?” my grandson asked. I could hear him suppressing a giggle as though he didn’t quite believe me.
“I thought this can’t be it.”
“Why not?” he said
“If this were it, surely it would be Sue or Harold…but Margaret? Not Margaret Spurrett. Never.”
He chortled.
“So what did you do then?” he asked.
“I decided then and there I better get better. And I did.”
And that was that.
It is better to try and be around lots and lots of people of all different ages. My elderly friends are wonderful companions but I also like to see my great-grandchildren and hear about their youthful adventures. I am lucky to be visited regularly by no end of former students many of whom now have their own families and children. My house is rarely empty for very long and when it is, my phone is usually busy with the chatter of my good friends who are too many to mention. Gilly calls them “Sheila’s army.” I am lucky to have such a community.
In the end, being alone and lonely are very different things. Often being alone is wonderful, especially on a walk up onto the hilltops, connected to our beautiful nature. Lonely is simply the loss of this connection. To people, places, and things.
“So what would your advice be to someone who feels lonely?” my grandson asked me, looking as always for the lesson.
I pondered.
“Do something for others,” I replied finally. “Connect to other people. Just connect. They are more than likely feeling the same way.”
Lesson 38: You’re never too old to travel, Friday, November 17th.
I wonder if she knows how wise and inspirational she is? Another great message.
Love Gran 💜