I suppose I am not unique in thinking that the times when I have been the most lonely in my life have not been solitary, but those when you are among crowds and invisible. It is the sensation you get in large cities, when you are invisible in plain view.
Societies by their nature have a way of sorting out who they want to engage with, discarding those who disinterest them. We all have a habit of looking through people, avoiding eye contact, not even offering people the courtesy of an acknowledgment of their existence. And everyone has their reasons for it.
The subject came to mind this week as I received a letter from a Galway reader who feels that modern society is fading out the elderly; disregarding their years of dedication, civic goodness and humanity. It is as if we cannot be bothered with hearing their opinions anymore, or even engaging with them.
Here is the reader’s letter that came to me this week. Have a read and consider his comments.
“Dear Editor,
I have thought about writing this many times since my mother died a few years ago and like everything, time got away on me and I am now finally putting pen to paper. I am a bachelor in my 50s living with my father who is now in his 80s.
Maybe this is not the life I had envisaged for myself but I have no complaints and get along well with my father and when she was with us, my mother too. My letter is really about becoming old and just not being seen anymore. In the time since my mother passed, we have had many visitors to the house.
Luckily we have a large extended family and my father has plenty of friends. My father is 100 per cent with it and keeps up with all that is going on, current affairs, trends, the lot. He is well informed. However, I am writing to highlight how things have changed in recent years for us, and in particular for him.
People come to the house, well intentioned and giving up their time to visit but the whole time they are there they address most of their conversations to me. They seek out and maintain eye contact with me as if the most important person in the room is me, just because of my age? My father seems to fade in to the background and no one seems to notice?
I have tried busying myself making the tea, putting the dogs out, anything to take the attention off me, but nothing seems to work, except leaving the room for a while so the conversation is redirected.
Do people not notice what they are doing? Do they not realise how obvious it is to all in the room except the person talking? The icing on the cake was the other day when we were out for a drive and called in to Dad’s friend as we were passing. The whole time we were in his house, the man kept chatting to me.
It broke my heart, I mean is this what is down the road for me, for all of us, we get old and our value is depleted and we don’t hold anyone’s interest.
I am writing in the hope that this might make people stop to think how they behave around older people and if they can change and start to include rather than exclude in future. These people are a mine of information and have stories to tell. We need to sit up and take notice before our chances are gone. Thank you for taking the time to read this.”
Please consider the points made above more eloquently than I could have managed. See if you need to change your behaviour.
