There he is, eating alone or standing at the edge of some crowd, wishing sometimes he might be invited in but alone people are not members, not even when asked to join. After the kiss of peace, he is no less a stranger. There is no one to share every day, no one to receive his kiss when Mass is over, or as each day begins and ends. He greets people or else looks away, and he reads but has no one to tell what he has learned, no one to ask what he thinks. But it is at meal time, at his table for two where no one else sits, that he seems most forlorn.
I used to see them together, when there might have been as much silence but it had not been so empty. They had been a family, something you cannot be on your own. They had gone shopping together, walked to the corner and back sometimes holding hands, laughing at what was perhaps best in memory, a word or recollection tied fast to what was shared so long ago.
I wonder too is he who I might become when time goes farther on. It is a thought I do not welcome. It is one I put aside, knowing too that people with memories, those who've been loved, are maybe less alone than they seem.
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