Sitting with the Lonely,

Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz

You know, sometimes it amazes me just to think, that at any one point, somewhere, all over the world, someone is falling in love right now. Somewhere, someplace, sometime, people all over are falling in love.

And it also sobers me to remember, that somewhere out there, at the same time, are a thousand other lonely people having their hearts broken, dreams wrecked or hopes trampled upon. A thousand other lonely people sitting under bridges, hungry in the cold by themselves while up above, hand-twined lovers stroll after a candlelit dinner under the moon-washed sky.

Last night, you had wheeled yourself out on your wheelchair to go drinking by yourself. What was that about? And I chided myself, for not making more time to visit you. It’s been so many years since your disability, but I don’t think things ever got easier for you. Not with the recurrent infections from a spinal cord injury, not with the recurrent hospitalizations, or the breakup.

And it hit me like a bag of bricks, that once upon a time, I promised myself, that I would be committed to sitting with the lonely. Because I know how it feels like- I have always been some kind of loner, anyway- I never really fit into my class at any one point of school. I had promised myself, that even when I got attached (if I ever did), then we would as a couple, go to visit the poor and the lonely and the hurting.

Were you lonely and hurting?

And then I remembered Mdm Y, an ex-patient who had been discharged to a nursing home. How was she doing? That day after work, I went to visit her and was shocked to see her in a room of 8, filed away in a corner with her multiple excoriations all over her body, with 7 other elderly people who were either non-communicative, or drowsy or had a tube stuck down their noses.

And I remember Mr. Z, an ex-patient with congestive heart failure, whom I used to buy groceries for on a two-monthly bases. How was he doing? I had bumped into him at hospital one day- he was readmitted and didn’t want to call to alert me- he usually did. My senior mentors at church still visit and keep up with his condition.

And Grandpa Zhou? Why, he’s still at home nursing a painful foot. He called me today because we agreed to meet up again soon.

Knowing how time-consuming being in a relationship can be, I often ask myself how true I would be to the commitment I made. Friends who have become attached often disappear from the scene, enclosing themselves in a two-person universe; friends who have found their partners often invest most of their time with each other- the entire package (wedding, planning, house, car, kids) is a gargantuan ordeal; friends who have families busy themselves with daily duties.

Not that these things are not important. In fact, I cannot emphasize how important strong marriages and families are- they are the building blocks to our communities, and the foundation of healthy societies. There would be no orphans if our families were built on good foundations.

But what I question and what I’ve been challenging myself lately is regarding how I would choose to live my life if I ever did get attached. Would I still be as passionate for the lonely, would I still remember them as often as I do now- drop them text messages, spend my free time visiting them, or calling them or at least thinking and praying for them? Or would my mind be pre-occupied with my own life intertwined with another, planning our next movie or dinner or time together.

I’m not saying these things aren’t important- I believe they are. I’m saying I’ve become frustrated seeing how relationships have become cut and reduced to a rigid formula in a tastelessly predictable season in our lives- movies and fine food and expensive holidays and cohabiting. Then buying the house (as a cheap means of proposing- because in Singapore, housing becomes much, much cheaper when bought by a newly-wed couple under an income cap), planning the wedding, then kids and earning more and more kids and earning far more…

I don’t know.

So I’m just writing this down now. So I remember how God always remembers the poor and the hurting and the lonely, how much they mean to Him. So I remember how beautiful an institution marriage can and ought to be, a blessing to others and not just something everyone –has to- go through for culture’s sake. So I remember, how the lonely have always been a blessing to me- for in my own times of loneliness, they were there for me, too.

Lunch with Grandpa Zhou soon. And coffee in a wheel-chair friendly place with you soon, too.

“He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow,