How to Overcome Loneliness

Now that I'm going on 69 and I'm thinking about aging, who's going to look after me? Who's going to notice that I didn't bring out my trash can? So I didn't pick up my mail, and my car has not moved. Does anybody care?

I'm a physician, volunteering here at the Capital City Rescue Mission. My focus as a primary care provider is identifying the problem. I remember a veteran that I saw when I was working at the VA, and he actually said, I'm starved for conversation. He wasn't having an issue. He just wanted to be able to share some joy with someone.

We live in a country where we all have our own independent lives, and I'm not so certain that that has helped us. We are created to live in a community.

If each of us looked at the older people in our community, in other words, we could adopt our neighbors. I am going to be going over to see my neighbor after work today. I'm only there about 15, 20 minutes, but she's lonely, and she needs someone to talk to.

I think it begins with asking questions. How are you feeling? Are you eating? Are you sleeping? What are you doing for social activities? It's going to be up to our whole society to value the lives of older people who raised us, supported us, and helped us along the way.

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