Curing Loneliness with Bonnie and Clyde

The Free Throw Wizard’s book

I had a dream last night:

I was kidnapped by an elderly couple.  They were so notorious about kidnapping people that they were nicknamed Bonnie and Clyde.  Then they kidnapped me, and I found out that they are really nice people.  I could see that they kidnapped people because they were lonely.  When I got the chance to escape, I did.  But the next time I saw them, I voluntarily got into their car.

Immediately, I recognized this as a dream about the retirement apartment where I live with Mom (my residence when I’m in the US).  It’s an independent living facility, which means that they provide no nursing care.  Basically, it’s an apartment complex with a communal dining room and lots of group activities.  Because we eat almost all of our meals together, we have developed a group of friends here.  Of course, there are some people that we are closer to than others, and there are some who we actively avoid (like the man who put a gift-wrapped tube of KY jelly into Mom’s purse on her birthday).

Loneliness is a universal plague, and even more so among the elderly.  Some of them have lost their spouse, some have lost their siblings, and some have even lost children.  And when all that loss is piled on top of the loss of normal faculties (hearing and vision), loss of health, and loss of independence, many become depressed.  Depression perpetuates and exacerbates loneliness so that it becomes an ever-more vicious cycle.

Today, I voluntarily let myself be “kidnapped”—twice!  The first was Benny, who always wears a Jesus cap, indoors and out.  He’s a sweet guy who loves the Lord and loved his wife.  They had been married for 52 years, when she had a catastrophic stroke and died a few years ago.  He’s never gotten over the loss.  When he talks about meeting Jesus face-to-face in a near-death experience, his eyes tear up.  And when he talks about his wife, the tears overflow.  But he’s always got a friendly word and a ready smile.

The second one was Fred, who always wears a basketball jacket and cap.  I had seen a painting up in the hall outside the Game Room, and noticed that his name was on it.  He had painted a church in Rome, so at lunch I complimented him on the painting because I knew it for a church in Rome even before reading the title.  He was very excited to have his painting noticed and recognized.  His wife died just before he moved in here as the very first tenant two years ago.  Then he told me something else about himself: he’s the Free Throw Wizard—he’s shot over 2 Million free throws without missing.  And here’s the really amazing thing about that: he shoots from behind a stack of boxes eleven feet high—he can’t see the basket.  In fact, he gave me his book titled Free Throw Wizard, and you can watch him on You Tube: Free Throw Wizard.

Here’s the thing: it only cost me a bit of time, but in both cases, I made these men happy just by being available to listen to them tell me their stories.  Sometimes you’ll meet a Free Throw Wizard, and other times, you’ll just help somebody find a reason to smile.  Either way, it’s all good.  And the bonus is that a good listener is never lonely.  God is good!  Now get out there and share His goodness with some lonely people.

Mourning—The Second Time Around

Grief is a process, and not an easy one.  This morning I learned that my father-in-law died.  This is the second time I’ve mourned his loss.  And I can tell you that it hurts just as badly the second time.

Let me explain: I was divorced in 2008.  I noted at that time that divorce is like a death in the family—multiple deaths in my case, since my ex-husband’s family has been cut off from all contact with me.  We had been married 33 years—all my adult life.  I had embraced my husband’s family and loved them as my own, so losing them made divorce all the more painful.  At that time I mourned the loss of each member of his family, including my father-in-law.  Now I ache at the thought of how these people I loved (in truth still love) are suffering the loss of this sweet man.  But they are as dead to me as he is, and that makes it very hard to endure.

My sons, although grown at the time of the divorce, have been caught in the middle.  We are all doing our best to learn how to live with the fact of divorce.  They’ve been told not to talk to me about my ex or any of his family.  At first, I had also asked them not to talk to their dad or his family about me.  But when I saw the difficult position it had put them in, I relented.  It has been said that to truly love, you’ve got to be willing to be vulnerable.  For my sons, I am willing to be vulnerable.  I would rather suffer than cause my sons to suffer.  But I can’t do anything about what they’re going through now.  I can only stand by and watch them in their pain.

When my younger son called this past winter to tell me of his dad’s impending heart surgery, I could only listen sympathetically.  His voice was constricted with pain at the possibility of losing his dad.  At the same time there was another worry: he told me that he had gotten his dad’s permission to call me only after promising to make me promise not to try and contact his family.  Of course I assured him that I wouldn’t try to contact any of them, while also trying to reassure him that his dad would be fine (which he was).

But there’s more to my pain than all this: I was the one who initiated divorce proceedings.  That’s a fact that I don’t share with everyone because Christians can be very judgmental about the issue of divorce.  My sons know that I divorced their dad, and not the other way around.  No doubt his family all know that, too.  At times like this I sometimes wonder: if I had known the pain it would cause my sons, would I still have divorced their dad?  But I know the answer.  I had to divorce him.  Knowing that doesn’t make all this any easier.  This is the path I’ve got to walk, and unfortunately my sons share the suffering.

Most of the time I live my life in the present, facing the future, and busily focusing on the tasks God has for me this day.  But when something like this comes it’s an emotional blast from the past—in the explosive sense.  And the pain, self-doubt, and loss are fresh and new.  And yet in the midst of all the suffering (mine, my sons’, my ex-family’s), I know that God is good.