Very few people came to my father’s funeral. Thinking about it makes me sad, but I wasn’t surprised. He was a complicated man, in both mental and physical pain, who for the last decade or two had lived and suffered basically alone, except for me. I was there suffering along with him, and I was also doing it mostly alone.
Or at least that’s what it felt like.
Yes, I had people: a wonderful husband who supported me, my mother and stepfather who had always included my father in family gatherings and occasionally offered rides to a doctor’s appointment. And, when the chips were down and I was ready to hurl them out a window, my brother (who, like most, had a challenging relationship with our father) would step in to stack them back up. Still, he was my burden to carry, or again, at least that was how I felt, because struggling is lonely work.
Over the years, the narrative welded itself to me, adding a level of martyred pride that made the torture more bearable. I was the good daughter who quietly cared for her sick and difficult father. I kept my feelings on the inside and my smile firmly plastered on the outside in an attempt to reassure others—and myself—that everything was fine and I could handle it all alone.
But as I looked out on that surreal sunny day across the surrounding headstones and small group of gathered family, a few special faces stood out. My friends. The ones I had told it wasn’t necessary to come. The ones who had spent the day organizing food and coffee that would be waiting back at my house. I don’t think I could have ever understood how important it was that they were there for me because I didn’t understand it myself. Yet even now, a year and a half later, the memory of it comforts me.
I was never actually alone.
Whether I discussed it or not—and whether they fully understood what I was going through—without even realizing it, every day they bolstered me. We stuffed our faces with sushi lunches and took long dog walks. We talked for hours on the phone about our fabulous and frustrating kids, our diets, Bravo’s “Real Housewives.” And we laughed, from giggles to snorts, occasionally having to cross our legs to keep from peeing in our pants (OK, that was mostly me), over everything and nothing.
They helped me forget, and they listened when I could do nothing but vent out my frustrations. They were there, and it made all the difference.
When I first moved to the suburbs, all I remember was the loneliness. My husband was off at work, and it was just me, under-groomed and overwhelmed, my almost 3-year-old, and a new baby. I had a half-empty house, 15 pounds to lose, and an ailing father who, more and more, was becoming my responsibility. With nowhere to go and a deep need to escape, I spent a lot of time outside walking. I pushed my double-wide stroller, exhausted, trying to move past my mountain of feelings. It wasn’t until I enrolled my son in nursery school the following September that I began to meet and make friends.
It was slow progress building my personal community, but ultimately, after the friends of convenience drifted away and the friends of drama exploded, I found myself surrounded by people who I truly love. People who bring joy and sanity to my every day.
Study after study shows that friends play a significant role in our overall health. We suffer less depression and have lower blood pressure and body mass index. Having friends makes our brains, bodies, and hearts happier. Studies have even found that older adults with a good social life seem to live longer than peers with fewer connections.
Unfortunately, as my father’s challenges grew, his support group dwindled. A man who my grandmother once told me “had too many friends” now essentially had none. Instead of trying to hold on to his relationships, my father had chosen to let them go one by one, separating himself and his problems from the outside world until all that was left was a sad, cluttered apartment, a never-ending rotation of aides, and waiting for me to call.
In his mind, he had done his friends a favor while also preserving the memory of himself as young, strong, and beautiful—but it was a mistake. Because while we may struggle, suffer, and grieve alone, we laugh, hug, and find compassion and strength together. Now there was no one to distract him from his own pain, no one to provide conversation or a smile. A hundred channels offering everything from “Family Guy” to Cary Grant offered the illusion of company without any comfort, and I watched how that isolation affected his mental state, which often seemed directly related to his physical one.
It’s a serious issue. According to the National Poll on Healthy Aging about a third of seniors report being lonely, which directly impacts their well-being. “There is robust evidence that social isolation and loneliness significantly increase risk for premature mortality, and the magnitude of the risk exceeds that of many leading health indicators,” says Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Brigham Young University. In fact, being lonely may actually have as negative an impact on your health as being a sedentary obese smoker.
People need people. We lift each other up and give each other the assuredness that someone cares. That feeling can be the sliver of sun on an otherwise dismal day. For years, my father existed in the dark, and even though I often felt discouraged, I had friends to lean on, friends to distract and brighten, and friends who showed up when it was not expected, yet desperately needed.
Back at my house on that day that was so terrible that the aftershocks still resonate, neatly arranged bagels, salad platters, and dessert trays covered my countertops, while fresh coffee brewed in my industrial-sized urn. Family milled about, and people came and went, offering their condolences. I talked to them all, my peripheral vision zeroing in on my friends like a “Where’s Waldo” picture around my house. There they were, cleaning up used plates, talking to my mom, accepting cookies from someone who just walked in, and chatting with my husband.
As the hours passed, my friends and I barely even spoke—we didn’t need to. It was enough just knowing they were there.
