JIM HENDRICKS: The loneliest time of the year

It was the most poignant message I’d ever heard on the phone.

An older lady — in her mid-80s — called The Herald’s Squawkbox line and left a message. Unlike the majority that espouse pointed political opinions, harsh criticism and rants in general, this one was plaintive and sincere.

You may have read it.

“I had a good Thanksgiving,” she said. “I had two cans of potted meat and some crackers. It was just me. Nobody cares about the old people anymore. They wish we were dead so they wouldn’t have to fool with us at all. Shame, shame, shame.”

After that comment was published, another lady called in.

“To the squawker who had potted meat for Thanksgiving: I gladly would have shared my can of Vienna sausages with her if I had known who she was,” the second caller said. “I spend all the holidays alone and don’t know anybody and don’t know how to make friends here.”

Both of those calls hit me. I think they may have affected a few other folks around town, as well.

Even more striking than the meager Thanksgiving “feasts” these two ladies had was the melancholy feeling that came through in their voices. I’ve always been appreciative of the good fortune that has kept me from experiencing that degree of loneliness.

It is a rough thing to deal with on a good day. I can only imagine how tough it must be this time of year, as Christmas is approaching, to be separated from family and friends. It is, after all, the time of year when the tug of family pulls hardest, the time when memories of childhood are the most vibrant, as if they are colored more richly by the bright lights we wrap around our trees and homes to fight off the extended darkness that envelopes us as the weather chills (eventually chills, at least … this is Southwest Georgia, after all).

The new year brings with it hope, I suppose, but the departing year leaves a lasting mark, too — a stark reminder that our days are indeed numbered and dwindle faster than we realize or want to admit. One of the best summations of that came out when actress Katie Cassidy repeated the last words of her father, singer and actor David Cassidy, who died just before Thanksgiving.

His words: “So much wasted time.”

Sadly, wasting time is something we all do, if we’re honest about it, and it’s an extravagance we can ill afford.

Through a series of events that I guess can be best described as serendipity — though I tend to lean more toward it being Providence than coincidence — I actually had occasion to speak with the first caller again last week. It turns out I’d frequently been to the restaurant where she once worked and also had been in the business she and her late husband owned a handful of times. That was many, many years ago.

I learned a good bit about her in a handful of phone conversations. She has someone who checks in on her from time to time and gets meals through Meals on Wheels, but she has no family in town. Her one constant companion is her cat. She has a sharp sense of humor — we traded a few jokes — and a good memory for detail. She’s got some health problems — it comes with being an octogenarian — but still does some handcrafting.

And she just wanted to talk, admitting that sometimes the desire to hear a human voice prompts her to listens to the spiels and recordings of telemarketers when most of us would hang up.

Both of these ladies have a point. In recent years, we’ve increasingly reduced social interaction to texts, tweets and instant messages. I heard one satellite radio broadcast recently in which a woman was offended because the guy she was quasi-interested in wanted to — gasp! — actually talk with her on the phone and try to get to know her. She — and the show host — were of a mind she could determine everything about the guy through texts and decided the would-be beau was being rude to suggest otherwise. (The irony that she took the time to call the show’s host didn’t escape me.)

Me, I doubt anybody’s going to head off to the Great Beyond regretting that he or she didn’t squeeze one more text or tweet in.

So much wasted time.

Unfortunately, the burden of this new style of social non-interaction is particularly hard on our older generations. Many of our seasoned citizens (I saw how much seasoning I’m getting, by the way, when I spotted all the gray hair of the floor after a haircut Friday) already feel they’re being pushed aside, that nobody cares or has time for them. My new friend repeatedly apologized for “going on and on” and interrupting my day, figuring I had more important things to do.

There’s a lot about this world that we can’t fix. Climate change, economic troubles, poverty, terrorism, military conflicts, meddling politicians, the controversy du jour — those all will be with us for some time, if history is any indication. But there are things we can do, small things, like picking up the phone. Even when you have a deadline bearing down on you.

Call anytime.

Email Jim Hendricks at [email protected]. Follow @ABH_JHendricks.