lonely people

I just saw one of my neighbors of twenty years, go to check her mailbox. She is using a rolling walker, needing assistance for the first time…she was old twenty years ago so now she is REALLY OLD! She used her left foot to really walk and her right foot to kind of slide along. It made me feel sick to my stomach to see the walker…She isn't social anymore, but she used to be a lot nicer, and I think when her husband died a long time ago, she became a lonely disgruntled widow. I have memories of admiring her roses and eating her candy as a little girl. She is now obsessive about her mailbox and lives for her daily mail. I'm going to write down her address and start sending her postcards every once in a while…she didn't have any mail in the box today.

Ugh, things like this make me so sad!! Loneliness is such an unfair thing…like the Beatles Song..Eleanor Rigby…all the lonely people…where do they all come from.
I have a bunch of postcard stamps with me…time to buy some postcards and write to all the lonely elderly people I know! I go through a postcard blitz like this a few times a year when I see something that reminds me of how much small gestures of kindness can mean!! Like a single letter in an old woman's mailbox! Aughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..

When I'm an OT, one of the art projects I'll always keep in mind for clients is making and sending postcards to loved ones, especially elderly people or lonely people….and if the client has no one, I always seem to have a list of people who could benefit from such a thing. Aughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh loneliness 🙁

I challenge all of you who read this post today, to go buy some pretty and colorful postcards, stamp them all immediately, and send just a few words out to some people you know who might be a little lonely…even if you don't know the person that well. It can just be a “Thinking of you!”….it might be the single moment of joy that person gets that day. That act of kindness brings Karmic GOLD.

Give it a try…maybe your own life will improve as well. 🙂