Solitude

Every time I look at my mother in front of the TV, I wonder how many elderly people are sitting in front of the TV as if it were the last hope of salvation from this lonely world. Their children all grown up and busy with their work and families, hardly finding time to talk to them. The brief moments in the day that their son/daughter sits to chat, they do not have the patience to listen to the old stories or the worry of sickness and pain that their mother or father has to share and get a comforting word. Slowly they become a burden to their children. Forgotten is the love, the tender care, the sacrifices they endured.
They slide into the world of loneliness. I am talking about the loneliness that we do not choose, the loneliness that we are obliged to accept - it is as if we no longer belonged to the human race.