Lonely.
On a Tuesday morning
In a Zoom call for work.
My mind partially here
But mostly with him
At the hospital down the road.
I used to be like my colleagues,
Putting PowerPoints and graphs
In the column of things that are important,
But that was before I was a caregiver.
My columns have changed
That’s abundantly clear
In this Zoom call for work
On this Tuesday morning.
Lonely.
Lonely.
On a Wednesday evening
At a book club with friends.
Everyone said I should get out more
Practice self-care.
But now that I’m here
I just want to leave.
The child in the book ends up dying of cancer
And now an elephant has moved into this room
That everyone works to ignore.
They avoid it for me
And the script that is mine,
The one that I left
To be here.
How can I be sitting
At a book club with friends
On a Wednesday evening
And still feel so very
Very
Lonely?
Lonely.
On a Friday night
On our couch
By myself.
Other couples our age are out at the bar
Having date night
Or hanging with friends.
My date has been asleep for hours already
So I sit
By myself
On our couch
On a Friday night.
Lonely.
Lonely.
On a Saturday morning
In our front yard.
All the neighbors are out.
Adults raking leaves,
Kids jumping in piles
None of them realizing how great they have it.
But at our house it’s just me.
My wife is inside,
At our son’s bedside,
Exactly where I’d like to be.
Actually,
I’d like to be here
In the sun
With a rake.
But with my son,
Healthy again,
Jumping in leaves
That my wife and I raked
Together,
Realizing exactly how great we have it.
But that’s not our life,
So instead I’ll rake alone
In our front yard
On this Saturday morning.
Lonely.
Lonely.
On a Sunday afternoon
At a family gathering.
How can I be in a room full of people
And still feel so alone?
Small talk is hard.
I don’t want to talk about her treatments, her appointments, her upcoming scans.
And at the same time,
Those things are all I know right now,
The things that fill my days, my brain, my heart, my sleepless nights.
I don’t have funny anecdotes from weekend adventures or itineraries of upcoming trips to share.
The only thing I have to talk about is the one thing I don’t want to bring up,
At this family gathering
On a Sunday afternoon,
All of which makes me feel
really
really
Lonely.
Share this page
