Someone has just completed a nationwide survey on loneliness, and amongst the variety of reasons given for feeling lonely, being alone is very low down on the list. This is not a surprise to me, as I have always thought that you can be extremely lonely even - and sometimes especially - when surrounded by friends and/or family.
One of the reasons which was very high on the shortish list was 'not being understood', or at least the perception that you are not understood. Another was the feeling that you are under appreciated.
I would imagine the feeling that your usefulness in society is either being ignored or has been forgotten is most common amongst the elderly, for obvious reasons. Amongst the late middle aged, if one of the last things you do in your job is to make a monumental cock-up, this will be the last thing that anyone recollects. It will be your legacy. The years of steady and unremarkable service in your particular field will be forgotten, because the blot was made at the end, not the beginning. This is true for everyone except top-end bankers, and before you accuse me of being a bitter, left-wing have-not, think about it. 'It's a Wonderful Life' is a fiction in all but the essence. The essence is that we all have a much bigger impact on the world than it might seem to us in our lower moments.
Tomorrow we attend the funeral of Marion - she who made the wonderful drawing above. If you remember, I spent a few months trying to trace her to give her this copy of it, the original having been stolen. She had been taken ill (she was over 90 but still very bright) and I only found out where she had been two days after her death. We will give the drawing to her son tomorrow.
If anyone had good reason to feel lonely, it was Marion. Her children had disowned her years ago because they blamed her for the foul acts of their father, but Marion always maintained that she knew nothing about them at the time. The children did not believe her and she lived alone in solitude for the rest of her life.
She had one good and faithful friend who was much younger than her, and the friend would take her out, do her shopping and generally support her in any way possible, but this friend died a few years ago of a rare disease, leaving her in the care of social services.
Despite all this, Marion always seemed chirpy and positive. It will be interesting to hear what they say about her in the service.
I suppose it depends on who briefs the vicar. I remember when my father in law died, the vicar was briefed by a distant relative, plus info that he gleaned from the net, publications, etc.
ReplyDeleteOf course most of it was rubbish, and we winced as we listened to him. I do hope that Marion's funeral elegy is better prepared.
I am wondering if it is going to be so well prepared that the sins of the father will take precedence over the parts of her life which they knew nothing about.
DeleteBear in mind that the son might put the drawing on the fire. Families are like that and Marion's sound like no exception.
ReplyDeleteIt's only a scan of a photo. When we give it to her son we will have just fulfilled a little plan, and it doesn't matter after that.
DeleteI wasn't talking about the quality or otherwise of the painting, I was talking about families.
DeleteI know. I don't know or care about her family though. I don't really care about my own.
DeleteI was thinking of how the painting and how the family might treat it after you and HI had cared for it for so long.
DeleteI really couldn't care less.
DeleteI see that now.
DeleteThank fuck for that.
DeleteThere was much in the media yesterday about loneliness in the young. I do wonder if they create their loneliness by their addictions to smart phones and not actually physically meeting and joining in with people, preferring to sit alone on a phone and converse that way. It's a bit like blogging, some of us consider people on blogs as special friends but we only achieve that from the loneliness of our houses, we don't actually go out and meet and socialise with these friends.
ReplyDeleteI have blogging friends, pub friends and a few others who I rarely see. I have zero Facebook friends. There's no lonelier place than Facebook.
DeleteCan't answer that, I've never used Facebook.
ReplyDeleteSnapchat?
DeleteInstagram?
DeleteI don't agree with Derek at all here Tom. I rarely feel lonely - I have plenty of friends - some live around me, some further afield, some are virtual in that they are in blogland. I have met a surprising number of them on my journeys and I have never once been disappointed. I have always felt that as far as friendship and lack of loneliness goes we reap what we sow to some extent. In any case some of us prefer to be lonely (that doesn't apply to me) although having said that when I close the curtains and the door once the evenings get dark in winter I am happy with my own company and plan the evening around TV, reading, chatting to friends on the telephone. We are all individual in our needs.
ReplyDeleteIf I were on my own as you are now, dear Weave, I think - and hope - I would feel the same way. I spent many happy years on my own in the past, and I regret none of them. In fact I sometimes miss them.
DeleteGiving the son the picture is a kind and good thing. How he reacts is his business and he has to live with it. I hope he is grateful.
ReplyDeleteWell, as I said to Rachel, I do not care beyond giving it away again. I don't want to receive any revelations fro her children.
DeleteI hope she has a positive remembrance. She deserves it. There must be someone who knows she was a real person.
ReplyDeleteWe do.
DeleteShe had a good job in WW2. She was positioned on the South Coast of England with a pair of binoculars and told to look out for enemy invasions. That's the sort of job I would have liked.
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