I rang the doorbell and waited. It was very quiet. No sound of the occasional car passing by. Not even the chirp of the random Californian Towhees that visit my backyard every morning to breakfast on my handout of bird food from Home Depot.
I looked down and noticed that I was standing on a good accumulation of dry leaves that were strewn around the entrance to the home. A couple of minutes must have ticked by. The abundance of dry leaves made it obvious that there had been very little movement of human foot traffic in several days. Is John even home, I wondered.
Then I heard the sound of feet shuffling, emanating from the other side of the door. Click. The door opened.
“Hello John. How are you?” I said, as I flashed a genuine smile on seeing my 84-year old neighbor.
John, draped in a white bathrobe, seemed happy to see me as he reciprocated my friendly sentiments with a smile of his own. “Come on in Ramesh”, he said and beckoned me into his spacious home.
John and I have been friendly neighbors for almost 20 years. We drop into each others’ once in a while to exchange notes on this-and-that of home maintenance. While he saw my young children grow up and leave home, I saw him grow older, lose his wife to prolonged sickness and, more recently, get sick with COVID. In him, I saw my father who I lost when I was 27. I took a liking to him as we continued to exchange pleasantries and quietly build a relationship over the years.
John showed me a chair around the round table in the family room as he sat himself.
“How are your birds?” I asked, referring to the scores of tiny birds that he proudly showed me when I had dropped by almost a year ago circa the pre-COVID days. The birds, housed in a special cage John built, were to be, I imagine, his companions after his beloved wife passed.
“Most of them died. The rats got them.” he said, his eyes a bit dull.
“I tore down the cage, cleaned up the place. I got a new set of birds” he said quite enthusiastically, pointing to a small table-top cage that housed a dozen small and colorful birds. We spent the next few minutes talking about the birds as we delved into amateurish ornithology with me mostly listening and nodding along.
The subject changed to fishing, a passion of John. Many a times I’ve seen him tug his small boat behind his truck as he went trout fishing with his buddy in the fresh waters of nearby lakes. “Its been more than a year since I went fishing. My friend passed away recently. I can’t go by myself as I need someone to help me with the boat” he said as he expressed his compounding state of loneliness. I was reminded of the time he brought me some trout from one of his fishing expeditions.
John got up suddenly. “Come! Have you seen my new boat and Jaguar?” He started walking to the door that opened into his garage. I followed him to the darkness of the garage as he fumbled for the light switch.
Light came on. A huge 20-foot fishing boat, seemingly occupying the entire garage, flashed into my visual perception. I’m not boat guy; but this machine looked awesome.
“It fits just right; just an inch from the garage door” John said priding himself in his new acquisition. “I calculated all the measurements perfectly so I can bring it into the garage. I have a trick to park it perfectly”. A big void in his life seemed to have been filled by this boat.
“And here’s my red Jaguar” John said excitedly. He squeezed his way across the 2-car garage through a delicate cranny spared by the big boat. I followed his lead to the red Jag.
A real beauty she was!
“My friend sold it to me. I had just enough cash to buy it. It was a steal. White leather seats and all…” he beamed. He invited me to sit and feel the car. This was my first feel for a Jag and I found great happiness in John’s own happiness as I caressed the car in appreciation of Jag engineering and aesthetics.
“I don’t go out much. Every weekend I sit in the car, start it and let the engine run for a few minutes” he said as the child in the 84-year old came out gushing.
I had spent almost and hour with John.
“Thanks a lot John. I had a really good time. I need to be going” I said. “Let’s get some lunch one of these days. There’s a nice Indian restaurant in the Town Center” I suggested.
“Of course! Thanks for coming by. Come by again.” waved John.
I’ve learned to listen for the silence of loneliness in those I encounter in my life.
P.S: This blog post is based on true incidents experienced by the author.
Whitney Houston once said “Loneliness comes with life”. Oh yeah!
A Harvard study titled “Loneliness in America: How the Pandemic Has Deepened an Epidemic of Loneliness and What We Can Do About It” lays out the seriousness and extent of loneliness.
36% of American adult respondents (comprising 61% of young people aged 18-25 and 51% of mothers with young children) reported serious loneliness.
43% of young adults reported increases in loneliness since the outbreak of the pandemic. About half of lonely young adults in our survey reported that no one in the past few weeks had “taken more than just a few minutes” to ask how they are doing in a way that made them feel like the person “genuinely cared.”
My Journey Of Gratitude 