Lonely 88-year-old proved Christmas isn’t just for children

This column by Celestine Sibley appeared in the Dec. 23, 1966, The Atlanta Constitution:

People who say Christmas is for children have forgotten that the season itself makes children of us all. It brings back other days and all the ones we have ever loved come close in memory for a little while. I guess it renews hope in us, too, for many things. “Peace on earth — and a daughter-inlaw,” pleads my friend Corinne (Mrs. Bill) Jones of Jeffersonville. “Red shoes,” says Inez Henry of Martha Berry schools. (It was a childhood yearning which, in adulthood, she comes nearer to satisfying by giving them to other children.)

But there is a woman in Atlanta who simply asks for a friend. Here’s her letter, which came partly inscribed on a Christmas card and then spilling over on a piece of paper:

“Just read your column and it urges me to write you. You are an educated writer so excuse all mistakes. The lady you spoke of suggesting an Empty Heart Fund has a wonderful idea because I am one of the empty hearts.

“Am 88 and sick a lot, am almost blind, can’t read much without one eye. Have been in Atlanta three years and no one has ever come by to cheer me. I’m shut in one room with nothing to think about but myself. My home is Brunswick, Ga. I gave up everything to live up here. I lost my friends and everything else worthwhile and there is nothing to live for now. All my loved ones are gone and I have no one to love me or cheer me at any time.

“Three years is a long time to sit alone in one room with nothing to do but brood. I would give anything in this world for just one friend to visit me as often as they could.

“When you get old and sick no one cares. They are not treated like they were human. I have always been real active and I lived alone 10 years but I had such wonderful friends in Brunswick and they were so thoughtful of me. It’s so hard to live in a big city where nobody cares and I pray to my Lord to help me get away from here after Christmas. I can’t bear any more.

“Please pray for me and don’t forget to ask God to help me. As the little poem goes:

“‘We all have a destiny that makes us brothers. No one goes his way alone. And all we put into lives of others will come back into our own.’”

“I hope I didn’t intrude into your daily routine. Just had to write to you so forgive me. Always a lonely empty heart with no one to care.”

After her name, which I will give anybody who wants to become her friend, she adds a wavery little postscript:

“Merry Christmas to you and yours.”