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The Ones We Leave Behind
Death Can be so lonely for the Elderly Survivor
I had planned a different article for this week especially with all the writing prompts coming out. However, I have something going through my head and it won’t stop and clear until I have written it down.
One of our neighbours died a couple of weeks ago just into the new year. He was in his 91st year and the first thing I said to my wife was that he had had a good innings. Why do people say that? I always do when someone gets to ninety. It may be because both my parents never made their eighties, and we were robbed of more time with them. These words are certainly no comfort to my neighbour’s wife in her mid-eighties who is now left behind to pick up the pieces.
It is so surreal as only a few days earlier he was smiling and waving to me through his window and now he has left us.
My wife and I along with other neighbours have been popping around most days to see how she is doing. We have always kept an eye on them, especially during the pandemic doing their shopping. She quite poignantly said that although they were always aware that he hadn’t been too well over the last year, she was never really prepared for the occasion until it happened. And that is so true for all of us. No matter how much we think we are prepared we will never really know…
