Side comment: The assignment this time was to imagine the loneliness in old age. ()-__-

Being old is lonely. Watching Sarah's friends die and slowly be lowered into the ground is like slowly stripping away her reality. They are all leaving her to bear the unrest and cold in a world that Sarah no longer understands. Her age of simpler things is now long past and left in its place is an age of technology and progress that doesn't so closely resemble what Sarah used to know. She has lived a long life and is filled with stories to match the ages but now she has trouble finding someone no one to tell.

Not that Sarah is ungrateful, because Sarah is thankful for anyone that visits her. People are just so busy that it's hard to make time. She understands, or tries to. They have to run errands and go to work and take the kids to practice. Her remaining relatives swish about here and there and come now and again. They always have a mark of guilt when they do drag their feet in but it is soon washed away by the smile that Sarah has been saving for them for the past month. She is so grateful.

Her greatest comfort is her imagination and Jesus. She can no longer go to the 11:00 service any more because it's too hard for her to get up. Most of her friends have died and her class doesn't really exist anymore so she tunes in on the television to the 11:00 service and receives the Lord's message as best she can. The Lord brings her comfort in her old age like he never did before in life. God is love and company and a companion that frequents more than the usual. She is so very grateful.

She tries to hold back the frustration when she thinks about her capabilities. She grows weaker and weaker and people treat her like a baby murmuring comforts and cooing as if she's going to keel over any moment and they don't want regrets. She feels old when she can tell that all her visits contain resolution. She tries very hard not to be bitter. Being alone gives her time to think of all her many regrets. She feels like she is wasting away wholly, body and mind. She doesn't feel wanted or needed by anyone. She misses being needed. But she is grateful for everything she has, really.

The arthritis condition is slowly deteriorating. She becomes bruised very easily and she has to be very careful in the tub because slipping could break her body in two. She holds those fears in the back of her mind and is grateful for what she has - so very, very much that she has had. Some days it is easier to get around than others. She has her good days though. Experience and wisdom are on her side and the Lord is her constant companion. Yes, she is so very grateful.

The masses of humanity have left her behind in their hunt for success and fulfillment. She is blinded by this reality but can do nothing about it. Most things blind her nowadays and she hardly has vision enough left to bother too much about the decay. It is so nice when people help her get around and read articles to her. They mean so much to her. Maybe if she could still write, she'd write a book. But it hurts and the young ones will hold her stories in their mind to tell later? She hopes and she is yet grateful.

So much has come to pass and the nursing home is her prison but it is hard to express that. She realizes that it would pose too much of a problem to live with a relative. She does wish the lady in the bed beside her didn't have Alziemer's disease so they might converse but what is to be is to be, is to be, and she is so grateful for what she already has.