The is a short post – copied from something I wrote in the spur of the moment.

Life gets in the way of our final years.

I am not there yet, but as it gets closer, I understand it more….

I just watched a wonderful movie: “Our souls at night” … and at the end I became very upset, my wife hugged me as she didn’t really understand why… yeah, I am a bit of a sook watching movies but this was a bit next level (the movie wasn’t that good!).

The movie was good, and ended well, but I was upset

because I thought of all the lonely nights my Mum spent after my Dad died…  and all the lonely nights my Nana spent after Grandpa died.  For Mum it was 24 years, and for my Nana almost 45 years….

Some days, waking up alone, going about your day, and going to bed alone.  You have family, you have friends, the world goes on around you.  You have breakfast alone, your have dinner alone, and television is your companion all day, or a book of places you will never visit, people you will never meet, and at the end of the day you turn off the light alone.

How can we let this happen as people with family and friends and neighbours, that we don’t know wake, eat, sleep, alone, everyday.

Maybe because that is the way that it it, that is the way that it always has been and always will be….

It doesn’t make it any less sad… although those who experience it may feel that way at times… if not all the time…  and they don’t blame anybody.

Life is lived.  They have loved and been loved.  And I am sure, positive actually that I am going to be in a better place and all those people that I miss in those lonely nights who have gone already, I will see again.  I am sure they wait patiently for me, as I wait patiently for them, for now, I may be needed here, just one more time, a moment longer, to make sure everything is where it should be before I am gone.  Yes, I may be lonely, but I am not alone – everyone is alive and with me in my memories and expectations.

Plus the joy of seeing those that are still here, even if rarely, is worth it.

So, waking in the morning alone, eating alone, the TV, and switching off the light alone, is just the way I wait.

Makes me sad thinking about it now, and there is nothing I can do about it for Mum or Nana – and no doubt I will be next.  I hope I die before my wife because I couldn’t imagine living without her – yet my Mum and my Nana…..?

What a sad post.  I’ll put it on my blog, but not share it – the old and lonely are a generation behind the internet so they won’t read it, and those who do will feel bad for a bit and promise themselves to ring their Nana/Mum tomorrow….