Only the lonely . . .

There’s a whole lot of loneliness going on out there. Too many people are caught on the periphery of goodwill and compassion in a society where we feed the hungry, shelter the homeless and shepherd the orphans.

What about the other forsaken ones in our society? Those who aren’t hungry, homeless or orphaned? They are simply but sadly lonely.

Those are the ones who break my heart.

“I don’t know anyone who’s lonely,” Penelope Ann announced, popping a fresh blueberry in her mouth then chewing slowly. These days, Penelope is all consumed with anti-oxidants so she carries a bag of blueberries everywhere she goes, disregarding her ever-present navy-shaded tongue.

“I seriously doubt that’s true. You just haven’t taken time to notice,” I replied.

“No, honestly. All my people have lots of friends.”

I tilted my head. “But not every one has lots of friends. What about old man McEntyre?”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s not lonely. He’s just crazy.”

I beg to differ. Old McEntyre, somewhere in his eighties, doesn’t get a lot of, if any, visitors, down that long, graveled road he lives on. Since people don’t come to him, he goes to them.

Every day that the rain doesn’t fall, he totes an old lawn chair up the graveled path, followed by his faithful dog and camps out next to the black top road. For hours, he sits there and waves and smiles at every car that passes. Been that way, too, since his wife passed away several years ago.

“What about Malcolm Turner?” I continued and, as I suspected, she said not a word to that. She’s heard me fret too much about Malcolm. When we were in high school, Malcolm played football for a rival high school. He was fierce and feared mightily by opponents and coveted by most of the colleges in the Southeast.

Now Malcolm, barely 40, lives out his days in a nursing home, sidelined by a stroke and a heart attack. Hardly anyone ever visits Malcolm who, though wheelchair bound, is one of the nursing home’s dearest residents.

One day, I watched as he rolled his wheelchair up to a window that looks out onto one single, spindly maple tree and gazed contently as he munched on a peanut butter cracker.

My eyes watered. I feel worse for Malcolm than he does for himself. “It’s tough in here, isn’t it?” My voice quavered.

He looked up with those sweet, childlike coal black eyes and puffed up his ebony-colored cheeks into broad smile. “Aw, no, it ain’t so bad. Every day I just git up and say, ‘I’m one day closer.’”

“Closer to what?”

“To gittin’ outta here. When my boy turns 18, he can take me home.” I swallowed the lump in my throat.

Malcolm’s son turned 18 two years ago and he didn’t come to take his dad home. In fact, he rarely visits and Malcolm, once a hero to many, is seldom remembered by any.

So, Malcolm and old man McEntyre sit by themselves most days, waving and smiling at strangers, thinking back to happier days and dreaming of better ones to come.

They’re just a couple of too many who have slipped through the cracks of compassion, overshadowed by the more destitute and downtrodden. To me, they’re the saddest of all because their hearts are seldom made glad by the kindness of folks who take a moment to care.

A couple of weeks later, Penelope Ann called.

“Malcolm wants to know where you’ve been lately.”

“Malcolm?”

“Yeah, I stopped by the nursing home to see him. There’s a lot of people out there with no one to visit them.” She paused. “You know, there’s a lot of loneliness in the world.”

Touché.