Turning to prayer helps

Published on: Sunday, September 27, 2020

By: Rev Dr Peter Abas

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Sandra selects a cross as a metaphor. She feels that a cross is directly related to her beliefs and more specifically, her religion. She believes that people were put on earth to carry crosses. The reason is that, according to her, people were not placed on earth to have a happy time. Although speaking sensitively, she often was at a loss for words during the interview and took many opportunities to consider and provide for long periods of time. Sandra elaborates that she is happy to carry her cross and turn to prayer often in times of need. You know that you are lonely, but you want to tell more about it to people, that loneliness is something about sadness; is something about emptiness. Loneliness is something about the inner suffering inside. It is not physical, you know. You are craving for…Emptiness would be one word that would fit it.

Sandra is an 86-year-old woman who is a retired truck driver and has lived alone in her own home since her husband passed away 31 years ago. She has a few children but all have moved out and now are living with their own families. During this interview, Sandra found it very difficult to express her thoughts and feelings but with much effort, she finally succeeded to speak out. When each question was posed to her, she pondered it for a while before she started to speak. She does not deny the feeling of loneliness and it does scare her as she grows older each day.

Sandra’s understanding of being alone leads her to express herself in-depth in regards to her lived experience. She specifically identifies the issue of relations with others in regard to loneliness. Sandra

explains, “All I know is that I like to be in contact with people.” Touching on the lived other component, with this admission she also adds, “Loneliness is like being cut off from everything and not being around other people.” She tries to figure out her feelings even though it is difficult for her to delve into her feelings. Her experience indicates that her loneliness has to do with relations with others. She expresses the feeling of pain.

She gently says, “the longing to be around people but there is also that emptiness when you are around people. A feeling of missing something. That emptiness is a hole that needs to be filled. The emptiness is the emotional feeling of pain. Feeling of being lost and confused.”

Her children are not with her now; they have their own families. She says: “My children are not around and I am surely lonely.” Sandra also realizes that being alone does trigger her longing to be with others. She explains: “Loneliness also goes with sadness because the feeling of wanting to be with others is very strong.” This is clear as she describes her feeling. “The feeling of emptiness and sadness occurred in my life. I have the feeling of wanting to be with people.” She is very consistent in her description,

“When you do not have that contact, you are kind of lost or something.” According to her, we do definitely need contact with other people. Sandra describes the feeling of comfort when she is with others: “On rare occasions, usually, when I am around people, it gets my mind off my problems.”

This feeling of longing to be with others is an issue voiced by Sandra. Unfortunately, she does not comprehend the rationale, “this is a kind of pain that is difficult to describe too.” Gently she says: “I don’t know. It’s something like a disturbing feeling and I do not know why or what is doing it.” Sandra affirms, “We need to be around people; we need to have contact with one another.” She explores her experience of loneliness in connection to depression as she says, “I might call it depression or something.”

Sandra confidently states that her loneliness occurs at “Night, night, night, I do not know, things close down. I feel vulnerable, then, because I am alone.” She explores her feeling in-depth, by the existence of her unhappy feelings. This testimony addresses the lived time component, and by stating: “I do not have a good feeling”, if she knows she has to go home. It is a characteristic of the lived space component. She finds it difficult to handle this issue that is all that comes to her mind.

She explores her bodily situation and identifies her own concern. Sandra describes, “My health…well, I’ve got a few worries about that. I try to put them out of my mind.” She admits, “There is really not much I can do about some of it.” Her acceptance of her lived body situation is quite evident.”

Within her own limitations, Sandra still has ways of coping with her loneliness. One of the ways she describes, “I go to prayer” and “read something that is uplifting to put me in a better mood.”

Nonetheless, the possibility of loneliness eventually becomes reality in her lived experience. She offers the reason for her loneliness. All my life I have had family, and all of a sudden I am alone; children are gone, husband’s gone, and I don’t have the people around me that I’ve had all my life. To me, that’s loneliness.

This is painful for me to accept the situation. Probably a kind of abandonment situation.

In summary, Sandra describes her loneliness as a painful feeling. Besides mentioning emptiness and having a hole within her life, she identifies the feeling as a kind of abandonment.

Her ways of coping are to be around people and also to practice her faith and spirituality. She perceives her journey of lived experiences as similar to carrying her daily cross; as a symbol of her daily life. She affirms that emptiness would be the one word that would fit her feeling of loneliness. (Each week, I will share the findings of my doctorate dissertation, on some themes on the causes of Loneliness, it should be noted that names used in the article are pseudonyms)

Rev. Dr. Peter Abas is a mental health counsellor and psychologist, founder of Home of Hope: Counselling and Professional Development Centre, a non profit organisation. He formulated a programme for senior citizens, Age is a gift from God.