The Gift of Aloneness

Lake Catherine SP, Arkansas (Fall 2014)

As a Hospice Chaplain, I have sat with hundreds of husbands and wives who were preparing to say goodbye to the “love of their lives.”   They shared many hurts and fears but one fear seemed nearly universal.  They were afraid of being alone.  Most understood that the death would bring peace to the one they loved and were able to come to terms with that loss.  But few could deal with the inevitable loneliness that would come in the days following the death.  As a Chaplain, I would encourage them to talk through these feelings and, if possible,  help them discover ways to cope.  But, the fear of being alone could not be banished with easy words or clever coping strategies.

They were experiencing a deep fear of loneliness.  They were remembering the vulnerability, the emptiness, the desolation that accompanied moments of loneliness.  One soon-to-be widow spoke of a time when her husband was in Vietnam.  They had only been married for a few months before he was deployed.   She moved back in with her parents while she waited for him to come home, but every night when she turned off the lights, she remembered feeling as if there was the rest of the world and her.  “There was no one I could call.  There was no one I could talk to.  No one would understand just how empty I felt.  It was as if I had been disconnected from my life.”  This is loneliness at its most raw and real.  She was not so much afraid of being on her own as she was of loneliness

Having a companion means we are connected to someone outside of ourselves.  We find affirmation for ourselves and the world around us.  We have another’s eyes in which we can see ourselves.  We have another’s voice for the conversation in our head.  We can feel another’s touch and know that we are truly alive.  Without that other person we will not simply be alone but isolated from our lives. 

The word companion comes from an old French word that that means “One with whom we break bread.”  Another widow told me after losing her husband of 60 years, “I can get through the nights okay.  I can get through most of my day by staying busy.  But the hardest times come when I sit down at our kitchen table and stare at an empty chair.” She went on to talk about how they would talk over the news or family business while eating.  They would  watch TV or listen to the radio.  Sometimes they would simply sit together in silence.  But that silence was very different when it involved an empty chair.

How do we cope with that empty chair?

Some people have rushed out and filled the chair with someone else.  They may remarry or have regular meals with friends or family.  Some folks have placed a picture of the one they lost on the table so that they can be reminded that the person is still present in some way.  Others may simply remove the chair or start eating somewhere else to avoid the reminder.  One person took this last way of coping a bit further by selling the table along with the house and starting over in a new place.

If you believe these will work for you then, by all means, give them a try.  The last one may be a bit drastic but if that is what it takes, your peace is worth it.  However, there is one other way that you may want to consider before calling the realtor.

Claiming the Gift of your Aloneness

Few situations in life are pure evil or pure blessing.  Our day-to-day living is much more complicated than that.  In every disappointment there exists an opportunity to grow.  Every defeat offers the possibility of a new path.  This is true even when we have lost our life’s companion and now face 10-20 years of being alone.

Aloneness offers us the gift of solitude.  Solitude happens when we open our lives and embrace our aloneness as a companion.  It is not so much a choosing to be alone as it is acknowledging and accepting what aloneness may have to teach us.

Mary was sitting at her kitchen table with a cup of tea.  We had just spent the last 45 minutes processing her journey through the last year following the death of her husband of 50 plus years.  She still spoke of sadness but there was an unusual counterpoint in her spirit.  There was a buoyancy, a new vitality, emerging from beneath her sadness.  I observed, “There seems more than sadness in our conversation this morning!”  Immediately, Mary went inside of herself and brought forth a fresh bouquet of insights that had been accumulating in her life.  She confessed that while she still missed her husband, she was also grateful that in the last year she had gotten to know a new companion in her life, herself!

Mary went on to speak of how she had discovered that she could take care of her home, her finances, and herself.  She spoke of having moved from her father’s house to her husband’s house and had never lived alone.  At first, she confessed, she was not sure she could handle all that being alone.  But as she discovered that she could deal with stuff she started seeing herself in a new way.  She loved being a wife and a mother.  But she was now falling in love with being Mary.

If you have lost the “love of your life” and feel that your life is over, it is time for you to grieve.  Allow the pain and loneliness to work its way through your life.   There are no easy answers or quick fixes.  In fact there is nothing to fix.  You are continuing to live through a very difficult time.  But I encourage you to keep on the lookout for a little blessing that will arrive from time to time.  It may be a balanced checkbook or a decent plate of  spaghetti that you prepared by yourself.  Allow yourself to claim your solitude as time to begin to live again on the other side of your loss.  Sadness may abide with you, but I pray that you will discover that there is so much more to you.

If you are walking with a parent or a friend who has lost their companion, allow them to live through their hurt and rediscover themselves.  Do not try and fill their lives with memories of what was.  Do not try and fix that which is not broken.  Do not try and work out your grief in taking care of them.  Rather, be present with and to them.  Listen without judgment or advice.  Let them know that they are not alone unless they choose to be.  Allow them to continue to grow into the person they feel emerging from the sackcloth and ashes of grief.  You will have a front row seat to one of the most beautiful sights in all the world, the birth of a new human being.

Blessings,

Bob

Bob’s new book, Whispering Presence: Inviting Mystery to be Your Daily Companion, is now available from amazon.com in both print and kindle editions.  You can download a free excerpt from Amazon.  If you want a companion who can help you find something more in your life, get your copy today.