How do I stop the pain of loneliness?

DEAR BEL IT’S taken me a long time to write and I feel ashamed to do it. I lost my husband more than three years ago and since then have lost four good friends, too. Now I have not a single friend in this world. Can you imagine what that feels like?

No one to meet for coffee, a shopping trip, the cinema, a meal.

I have two lovely daughters, whom I see almost every day. One even lives in the same street with her family. I go places with them, but not all the time, as I don’t want to seem like a bad smell hanging around.

I look after their children when their work commitments need me to, and I love them dearly. But now there is nobody who likes me for me — not because I am a mam or a nana.

I am reasonably healthy and get in my car and drive around and go places on my own. I never have a drink in the shopping centre, as it is like having a spotlight on you when you are alone.

I could cry when I see couples my age companionably walking around when I am aimlessly walking alone.

My family do not know how achingly alone I feel. They’d be mortified and think they’ve failed in looking after me. But what could they do to end this pain in my heart? I miss my husband so much, as we did everything together.

I am sure there are lots of men and women like me who lack the courage to walk alone into an already established organisation.

If you don’t publish this, at least I know there is one other person in the world who knows how desperately lonely I am.

MAGGIE

YOur letter is handwritten (with an address) and I’m wondering if you might try to help another lady, Frances. Here’s her letter in full: ‘My problem doesn’t seem much compared to some of the heartbreaking letters I’ve read on your page, but it’s a worry to me.

‘I’m a very isolated person, which I can just about cope with. But I’d love some contact with others. I don’t want romance, just friendship. I’m a complete technophobe, so don’t use a computer, so do people still write to each other? Can you suggest anything?’

Maybe you could write her a supportive letter (I’m sending you her address in Scotland — just in case, although obviously no pressure) simply because you know what it’s like to be lonely. I grew up at a time when people had penfriends all over the world, but the internet has probably ended all that.

So I wish with all my heart that Frances would seek computer lessons (perhaps at a local library) because Facebook, for example, is a great boon to the lonely. The best way to stop being a ‘phobe’ is to tackle what you fear.

Back to you, Maggie . . . to have been dealt the blow of five bereavements in three years is cruel indeed. When you walk around alone you carry your grief for your husband with you, and that’s entirely understandable.

But, again, you have to tackle this phobia about sitting down alone. Buy a copy of the Mail, steel yourself to enter a cafe, sit down with a coffee and read.

Do it once and it will be easier the next time. That is my immediate prescription.

You will notice others alone. In time you may start chatting. It does happen, you know, so don’t be ‘aimless’ — make this your aim. In time you could look into (say) volunteering in a charity shop. It would give you a sense of new purpose.

Now, what on earth is this nonsense about a ‘bad smell’? The unpleasant phrase reveals your low self- esteem and ( yes) would certainly upset your daughters.

I must gently point out that your roles as mother and grandmother (and wife and widow) are inseparable from the whole entity that is ‘you’ — and therefore I wish you would stop feeling fragmented. There are many people who don’t even have that (probably Frances) and yearn for the blessings you possess. But you know that, don’t you?

The trouble with grief is that it makes people numb. I understand that — but I also know that sometimes you have to pinch yourself hard, to understand that you are alive.

In your heart, promise your husband and those four good friends you lost that you will now start to live on their behalf, noticing the way the sun shines on daffodils and smelling blossom and hearing birdsong and tasting that coffee — all for them. So doing, you cannot be alone, can you?