“I feel lost, unsure of how to carry on. The thought of being alone and facing a helpless old age terrifies me…” This is the story of a woman who has weathered every storm—only to find herself standing alone at the end.
Sometimes, my life feels like a long, drawn-out film without a happy ending. I’m 62, sitting by the window of my small flat on the outskirts of Manchester, watching the cars go by, wondering how the years slipped away so quickly. Everything I once held dear is gone. Now, it’s just me—sitting with my thoughts, tangled in quiet anxiety, and fearful of what tomorrow might bring.
Fourteen years ago, my life was divided into “before” and “after.” First, my father passed away, battling cancer, each breath like a hammer blow to my heart. Months later, my younger sister succumbed to the same illness, the same inescapable agony. Then came something I never anticipated: my mother suddenly developed dementia. She stopped recognizing faces, confused day with night, got lost in her own home. She went from being an adult to a helpless child. My husband… he couldn’t handle it. He left. Said he was tired of living with the shadow of the woman he once loved. He left for someone young, carefree, and full of life. I was left alone—with a sick mother and a daughter from my first marriage who resented me.
She never forgave me for my second marriage. When I remarried, she was eleven years old, and it turned out she had been harboring resentment all these years. We grew distant. There was no one I could expect help from. Friends drifted away, acquaintances stopped calling. I was merely surviving. I was losing my mind from pain and exhaustion but refused to break down. Regular sessions with my therapist kept me afloat. My mother was like a newborn—I fed her with a spoon, changed her nappies, bathed her, sang lullabies when she cried at night. We went through it all: strokes, a fractured hip, a difficult surgery. I lived on the edge for six years.
And then she was gone.
You’d think I’d breathe a sigh of relief. But no. Instead of relief, there was a void. And with my daughter, only hurt and constant blame: that I didn’t help financially enough, that she couldn’t afford a holiday because she hadn’t found a “decent job,” and of course, it was all my fault. My fault for her stepfather leaving. My fault for not supporting her when things got tough. My fault for having her at the wrong time, with the wrong person.
I signed over the family home to her. Only my therapist knows the tears, nerves, and sleepless nights it cost me. Then I was diagnosed with cancer. A hellish diagnosis. Chemo. Surgery. And arguments. My daughter moved in with me temporarily—not out of compassion, but because it wasn’t certain if I’d make it. Silent, angry, indifferent. Physically present, but absent in spirit.
It’s been six years since then. With God’s grace, my health has stabilized. I’m working again, finding joy in small things, slowly coming back to myself. My daughter married, had a lovely baby. They live separately. We talk, but I always feel how fragile our bond is. One wrong move and the bridge would collapse.
I live. But it feels incomplete. Because deep inside, there’s loneliness. In the evening, I come home and the silence is deafening. During the pandemic, this feeling became unbearable. Friends have either moved away or immersed themselves in family life. No one calls. There’s no one to share my dreams with. No one to complain to about the pain in my leg. No one asks, “Have you eaten today, Helen?”
I recall when I used to be needed. Cooking dinners, ironing school uniforms, knitting socks, running to hospitals, filling out forms, sitting by my sick mother’s bed at night. And now—silence. No one waits for me. Nowhere am I awaited. And it terrifies me so much that sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat—thinking that one day I might fall in the bathroom, and no one would know. That one day I might just disappear, and the world wouldn’t notice.
I’m afraid of the future. Afraid of becoming that elderly woman with a vacant stare, sitting by the entrance just to hear someone’s voice. I don’t want pity. I’m not seeking sympathy. I just want to matter to someone. Even if it’s just a little.
Thank you if you’ve read this far. It means today, I was heard. And that means I’m not completely alone yet.