Loneliness Is Not Absence

El Pais

Lean Left

Factuality

Ownership

For more than 30 years I have worked with older people and, at that time, loneliness has been a constant presence, though never equal to itself. I have seen it appear as silence, as sadness, as distance, but also as memory, as inner conversation, as a form of companionship that is not always visible. Over the years I have learned that loneliness is not a homogeneous or easily classifiable phenomenon. It is not just an uncomfortable experience of…