alone

It's often remarked that 'growing old never comes alone'.

It's a euphemism, of course. A kind way of acknowledging that as the years go by and we move into that stage of life called 'old age', all sorts of issues begin to emerge which we haven't encountered before.

Aches and pains which never used to be there. A decline in our physical stamina. A stiffness in most of our joints. A loss of that sharpness of vision. A slowly increasing deafness. Limbs which will no longer do what they're meant to do. A mind which starts to function less than coherently. A memory slowly going AWOL.

It's simpler, and kinder, I suppose, to observe that growing old never comes alone. We all know what's intended by the phrase.

And yet, a very large part of the struggles of increasing years is that fact that growing old does in fact 'come alone'. An aloneness is often a feature of those advancing years.

The folk who were always there for us, are often no longer there. A person's spouse has maybe died. Their friends have often likewise now departed this life: and those that are left are less able themselves to be out.

And, increasingly confined as often those well up in years can be - at home, in a Nursing Home, or for long spells in hospital - the out-of-sight-and-out-of-mind phenomenon sets in. Folk no longer visit as they used to do.

You can feel very much alone.

Seeing folk today has impressed that on me again. An elderly man in the Hospice. A lady confined in a hospital room on her own. A lady moving up in years whose husband has now died.

Growing old doesn't come alone. Except, of course, it does. Very often with our growing old comes the experience of being alone.

It's an aspect of our pastoral care whose pressing demands lie much upon my heart these days. We're an ageing population - and an ageing congregation, too.

It's a ministry more needful now than ever! We must find the ways to make the words of the song our own - You'll never walk alone!