millwad
08-07-2014, 06:37 PM
Two years ago both me and my girlfriend came in contact with an old lady living above us. She was walking up the stairs as our our elevator broke down, she had 2 pretty heavy grocery bags so we decided to help her and we took one each and went up to her floor.
Even though we did such a small thing the joy in her eyes was obvious. She thanked us a handful of times and invited us in for some tea but we kindly declined. The lady then told us that she's been living in the same apartment the last 20 years but that her husband passed away 3.5 years ago and ever since she's been doing everything alone since her only daughter lives in another city.
We felt pretty bad that we didn't go in afterwards since she was so nice and seemed to be so lonely. The following day she had hung a small plastic bag on our door handle, I opened the plastic bag and saw that she had made us sandwiches. The minute we saw it we went up to thank her and she invited us in again and we drank tea and ate breakfast at her place.
The lovely lady gave us breakfast and we talked about everything possible, she showed us around and showed us pictures of her grand children and her late husband and pictures of her when she was young. We really enjoyed our short stay and time flew by. She was interesting, kind hearted, warm and so social and it hurt us that she was so alone. We started to interact with her more and more and then it became our thing to eat breakfast with her on saturdays when we had time to do so.
For 1.5 year we really got a great relationship with the lady and she almost felt like family and she sure saw us as family as well and she was very quick to tell us that well.
Around 4 months ago she got sick, she had poor lungs after decades of smoking. I went to visit her two times and my girlfriend visited her 4 times under her stay at the hospital and we were away this last month and when we got back few days ago we got the awful news that she has passed away, from a fellow neighbor. We both got heartbroken.
My girlfriend started to cry and I haven't been that sad in a long time. Now a week has passed and I am happy that we spent so much time with her, we looked forward to meeting her as much as she looked forward to meet us for breakfast and other activities. We had a true friendship and even though we are the one's who are lucky to have met such a wonderful lady, I am also happy that we made her feel less alone and more loved.
Bottom line, there are so many old people who get very lonely as they get older. The most common reason is that their loved pass away or their children get their own families and forget their parents some. Old people who have so much love to give and so many passions are getting forgotten because we tend to forget them.
I am not saying that I am special at all for giving her my friendship, in fact, we are the one's who who are the lucky one's that we had the opportunity to meet such a wonderful person. What I want to say is that we should give our old one's the attention they deserve and need.
Don't let them be alone, love them and take care of them. I will for sure miss her lovely personality and I feel blessed that I was fortunate enough to meet her.
Even though we did such a small thing the joy in her eyes was obvious. She thanked us a handful of times and invited us in for some tea but we kindly declined. The lady then told us that she's been living in the same apartment the last 20 years but that her husband passed away 3.5 years ago and ever since she's been doing everything alone since her only daughter lives in another city.
We felt pretty bad that we didn't go in afterwards since she was so nice and seemed to be so lonely. The following day she had hung a small plastic bag on our door handle, I opened the plastic bag and saw that she had made us sandwiches. The minute we saw it we went up to thank her and she invited us in again and we drank tea and ate breakfast at her place.
The lovely lady gave us breakfast and we talked about everything possible, she showed us around and showed us pictures of her grand children and her late husband and pictures of her when she was young. We really enjoyed our short stay and time flew by. She was interesting, kind hearted, warm and so social and it hurt us that she was so alone. We started to interact with her more and more and then it became our thing to eat breakfast with her on saturdays when we had time to do so.
For 1.5 year we really got a great relationship with the lady and she almost felt like family and she sure saw us as family as well and she was very quick to tell us that well.
Around 4 months ago she got sick, she had poor lungs after decades of smoking. I went to visit her two times and my girlfriend visited her 4 times under her stay at the hospital and we were away this last month and when we got back few days ago we got the awful news that she has passed away, from a fellow neighbor. We both got heartbroken.
My girlfriend started to cry and I haven't been that sad in a long time. Now a week has passed and I am happy that we spent so much time with her, we looked forward to meeting her as much as she looked forward to meet us for breakfast and other activities. We had a true friendship and even though we are the one's who are lucky to have met such a wonderful lady, I am also happy that we made her feel less alone and more loved.
Bottom line, there are so many old people who get very lonely as they get older. The most common reason is that their loved pass away or their children get their own families and forget their parents some. Old people who have so much love to give and so many passions are getting forgotten because we tend to forget them.
I am not saying that I am special at all for giving her my friendship, in fact, we are the one's who who are the lucky one's that we had the opportunity to meet such a wonderful person. What I want to say is that we should give our old one's the attention they deserve and need.
Don't let them be alone, love them and take care of them. I will for sure miss her lovely personality and I feel blessed that I was fortunate enough to meet her.