Suspended State

He spent the morning at the table with his tea and mail, narrating his actions aloud, “Right tea first, then I’ll do the mail,” listening to his voice cracking, thin, dry. He sipped on the tea; coffee was not an option any longer, as it makes him use the bathroom too much nowadays.

As well as being tied to memories of the house full of laughter and three chaotic children, the grandfather clock in his hallway did not just tell him the time; it measured the slow evaporation of his world.

For months, Howard lived in this suspended state, staring at frozen dinners, thinking of the home-cooked meals and the warm, inviting scents of what home should be.

Looking at photographs, he finally had to place in a drawer with smiles where everyone is happy, all are there, no one is missing, and now the absence has a language all its own.

Howard was eighty-five, his joints stiff with age, and he felt tired all the time. Rising from a chair took effort, but even that was easier to bear than the heavy, suffocating silence that filled the house. The house was too quiet; the soundless pressed against his eardrums, and the hum of the refrigerator broke the surrounding muteness.

He kept the kettle on the stove even when he was not using it. Its handle was marked by years of fingerprints beyond counting. As he rose to make a second cup of tea, Howard spoke to himself just to hear a voice: this cup, then the mail, mostly junk anyway, but it keeps me busy for the morning, he told himself.

In the afternoon, he thinks after he does the dishes, leaves the kitchen, maybe I’ll pick up the journal the counselor told him to start as he makes his tea, pictures the dusty, neglected green notebook he picked up at a store he can’t now remember and started to write sitting at his desk one day as his mind raced, the aches, the pain, the anger the frustration, of feeling so misunderstood. Seeing the four chairs at the table in a dining room no longer serves a function.

Howard wonders where to move the chairs to. He considers the master bedroom; he rarely sleeps there or even goes inside. To many smells, memories, the touches, the kisses, even an old man can remember what a feeling was, what a touch felt like, missing all this and so much more.

He much prefers the lounge chair in the living room, with the television murmuring in the background, even when he is not really watching it. While in the other lounger, he continuously tries to take no notice of the fragrance hovering from the other chair.

Howard’s mind returned to the tea and the mail, the afternoon hours he worried about when they came, and they would need to be filled as well as a night.

After the cleaning of the kitchen table and the mail, all junk as he expected, the phone rang. He stops wiping the stove and places the dishcloth in the sink to answer his cell. He was hesitant. Was it going to be Someone asking how he was doing, but he does not know how he is doing.

The counselor has someone call to do a checkup on him and the journal writing, one of the sons, who rarely visits but calls regularly. The daughter, who often visits, must look at the caller ID to see the unknown caller typed there, just let it ring through, no sense opening an assortment of problems with a wrong number, let the phone ring.

Then he heard in the distance the brief but distinct sound of thunder, rain all I needed. Rain begins against the window. Each drop was a tiny arrival for the next, rain on the roof, no walking to the park today, Howard thought. The after dragged on.

He considered picking up the phone. However, one by one, names in the address book were crossed out, not because of a falling out or any misunderstanding, simply because so many had all crossed the finished line of life before he had. The ones who may still be did not want to appear desperate or, worse, to be rejected. It just seemed easier to drown in the silence than ask for a life raft.

Starting to feel like the last guest at a party, Howard sat there as if the lights were dimming around him, and they were not; he had all the lights on, and it was the afternoon.

By evening, Howard knew he had to make a change. He could no longer wait for someone else to fix his life; he had to make space to let others in.

I am not showing love; I do not visit. This realization was jarring to him; loneliness had not just emerged, it was nurtured by my fear and self-absorption. Feeling like a ghost haunting my own existence, I am drowning in a world where I am self-disconnected. I need to trust I can be my own companion. Howard paced, thinking of tomorrow and not having the feeling of suffocating of weight settling in his chest.

Howard felt a sharp spike of being resentful about his own life and was tired of being a spectator in his individual life. He knew that with the pain, suffering, and loneliness, there must be a polite way to bring myself back to society.

Howard made a deal with himself not to remain a passive victim of the silence, deciding to take steps towards connection and not rely on anything happening quickly, and thought of names of people he had not spoken with in several months.

He sent a silly text to his sons and daughter, all responding with a call, and he grabbed hold of the phone each time it rang. All small actions, nevertheless, are actions.

Howard went back to exploring his own city. Talking to people. Started treating people with kindness, hoping others would do the same.

Tuesday, he went into his wood shop in the garage and found his old woodworking tools buried under dust. Hands shaking slightly as he plugged in the noise sander. The roar of the machine started in the quiet neighborhood. He could hear the sound of a dog barking as soon as the sander started. Not bothering Howard, he takes wood and starts to shape a small, simple bird's house.

Tomorrow, he will go to the park, sit on a bench, not looking for friends, finding someone to give this to, a true treasure of life, he knows would be difficult to continue, but has a purpose that keeps him from loneliness.

He’d find a young child with his parent and ask whether he can give this to them, “tell them built yesterday," and it needs a loving home, “with his rusty voice."

The conversation will last only minutes, but it will start a bridge he could only hope for.

His own world had shrunk, and he knew there was one still spinning out there outside his front door.

He could not bring back his wife, make the sons visit more are the grandchildren, but he can be the man who built birdhouses for anyone who would take them home with them.

Howard will return home, turn on his radio, not to drown out the silence any longer but to accompany his work. Not waiting for the end any longer, he was just seeing there was a middle

Over the next few weeks, He was not a social butterfly. Managing to leave home to talk with a few unfamiliar people on the streets and with shopkeepers. Lonesomeness does not completely change; nonetheless, if you begin to work on being alone, things will start to fit into place for you, and being alone does not have to mean you are lonely.