She’s retired and lives alone, but there’s more to it than that. A child of two Holocaust survivors (they survived Dachau), she says she’s been lonely for as long as she can remember. But give her a chance and she’ll put you at ease – she’s a self-professed communicator. But this communicator made it clear she can’t stand small talk. She loves to talk, sure, but only about the stuff that matters, coming across as equal parts shrewd survivor and hardened optimist. Talking with her is fun: she lunges at your awkward silences, keeping you on your feet. And what at first seem like huffy declarations soon reveal themselves to be on-the-money anecdotes of a life lived on the harder-earned side.
But to be sure: she’s a survivor. Cancer took half her tongue, gave her a lisp, and took away some of her closest friends (they didn’t know how to handle it). And she has her share of regrets left over from the heavy grind of her younger years. Obviously it’s been hard. But nothing can blot the enthusiasm from her voice. You really think to yourself, “This is a woman who isn’t taking this lying down.” She’s the kind of person Oprah would rustle out of “ordinary” life and make a viral star. But then we’d never really know her.
And getting to know her is worth doing. She’s been through so much and made so much out of so little, that she deserves to be heard. There’s something deeply grounding about talking with her; she’s very real — you know you’re getting the real deal, and in these iffy days of dodgy online anonymity, that’s a big deal. She’s remarkably self-aware, better than most at survival, and knows what she has to work on. She’s had a demanding life, but insists on making the most of it. For that she deserves our attention — and our respect.
You told me you were doing some volunteering. How long have you been doing that?
I volunteered for different things for many years. But now I’m volunteering for the Red Cross’s blood drive. I’ve been doing that particular job for nearly two years.
What does that entail?
They have a fancy title for what I do (laughs). I’m a donor ambassador. I get [the donor’s] information and I have them read the material that’s necessary. There’s reasons you could be excluded, and that’s entailed in the information. I make them read that. When there’s a blood drive bus, it’s imperative they have a volunteer. Like today I was really needed. It’s pretty easy, but I like it because it’s meaningful that I’m helping out on a mission I believe in, the Red Cross mission. I volunteer for five hours at a time at blood drives.
What do you get out of it? Does it help you feel less lonely? More involved?
Well, I have to interact with the prospective donors, so yes, I do feel less lonely. I feel like I’m giving back, and it’s fairly meaningful. So I enjoy it. I’m retired, so I have a lot of time on my hands. I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t enjoy it. Sometimes it’s not that all that meaningful, [it can be] just a routine job. But I interact a lot with the donors and we talk, so it’s fun.
How are the Meetups going? Have you been going to any lately? I know you have your own group.
I haven’t been going to many lately. I end up seeing a lot of Meetups but so many aren’t really my cup of tea so I end up leaving them early or don’t go.
What would be a Meetup that you’d be interested in? What are your kind of Meetups?
I like ones that are convenient for me. I don’t drive, so I need public transportation. I like different kinds. Sometimes I like the discussion ones, or if I know who’s running one.
You have this love of blues music. And I know you frequent a lot of those music clubs. Have you gone to any of those lately?
No, I haven’t. But I recently met a neighbor at a bus stop. We started talking. She’s an older woman and she’s single, and we went out last night. It was fun and she’s open to music. And I think I’ll see her again. And I won free tickets. I’m going next Friday, hopefully with her, although she hasn’t responded yet to the invitation.
What kind of venue is this?
It’s a very nice intimate venue. It’s fun. I love it. I get exposed to new people and new singers that I’m not familiar with. And I see them for free. Even though there tends to be jazz or blues, it broadens my horizons because I’m getting to know new people when I see them, and for free! Every month they have free drawings.
Have you found anyone else to go with you? It’s great you found that woman to go with you.
She may be moving. She told me that if she doesn’t get into senior housing soon she may return to California. So I have disappointments. There was also somebody I liked who ended up getting laid off and she ended up moving to Washington DC.
When was that?
About a year and a half ago. We didn’t do that much. I met her through my Meetup. She came to my Meetup and she was very nice. She was very determined to get another job. She’s a little bit younger than me. She got a good job offer in Washington DC, so that was kind of the end because she never contacts me anymore.
So tell me why you started your Meetup.
It was a way to meet single people that were older. Now it’s mostly women, which is fine — I have no issue with that. Women tend to be the joiners and men don’t seem to be that interested. I do have some men — nominal members — but they don’t attend. I don’t know [why that is], I wish I knew.
How successful has it been?
I have over 300 members. Only a fraction of the 300 actually attend events. But I am doing something next Thursday. During the winter I didn’t bother posting anything. I finally posted something for next Thursday, a dinner. And right away I got about six people, including myself. I like a small group, I’m more comfortable in a small group. I’m looking forward to getting back into it.
So I know that you like music. Do you have any other activities you can do with other people for companionship?
I don’t really have a lot of hobbies, but I do belong to a kind of 12-step program. So I go to meetings every Wednesday.
Does that have some kind of spiritual component to it?
The twelve-step programs have a spiritual component to it. You don’t have to believe in anything. You can believe in the group, or a higher power. I recently started attending this group. And it’s meaningful to me.
How is it meaningful?
It’s meaningful because I feel like I’m not alone in having this issue. It’s a small group, but it makes me feel less alone. It also helps me because we commit to do something to help our situation. To me in that way it’s very meaningful. I should read the group’s literature; I haven’t gotten around to it (laughs). It’s a good group. I do like it, even though it’s difficult to get to by public transportation. It’s in a neighboring town so it’s very difficult for me to get to. I’m usually late because I have to make three changes on the bus. Not driving is a pain (laughs)! Everything takes, sometimes, three times as long. If I drove, it would probably be 15 minutes at the maximum. And this way it takes me about an hour-and-a- half to get there.
It must mean a lot to you though.
It does. And it’s the only twelve-step program for this particular issue in my area.
I’ve been doing a fair amount of research on loneliness and one of the big things that helps people feel less lonely is having a sense of purpose. And it seems like this gives you a sense of shared purpose.
It gives me hope with the issue that I have. And it’s very meaningful to me. It makes me feel less alone because other people have this issue. I’m sure there are tons of people with this issue. OK, I’ll tell you the name of the group: it’s called Clutterers Anonymous. I’m not a hoarder like those people on the shows. But I have issues with clutter. I had no model for organization [during my childhood]. My parents were Holocaust survivors. My mother was very bad [about clutter]. So Clutterers Anonymous is a great group. And it gives me some emotional support. You’re not allowed to do any crosstalking when other people are talking. But we all are allowed to say our piece. And one of the things is we’re supposed to not bring something into our house until we’ve removed something, released something. I’m not a hoarder though. Those are people I feel really bad for. My mother was a bit of a hoarder. But you know, people who went through the depression or concentration camps, it’s not uncommon, because they lost everything.
I was struck that both your parents were Holocaust survivors.
They were, both deceased, god rest their souls. I remember feeling very alone, having these damaged parents. I never knew anybody who had parents like mine.
I was kind of connecting the dots when you said you’ve felt alone since childhood. That makes total sense to me.
There aren’t that many Holocaust survivors in general. There’s hardly any now, since they’ve all died out. Being the daughter of these really unfortunate people was extremely difficult. I would rather not be [my parents’] daughter and just have them as relatives instead (laughs).
Did they not have enough emotional availability?
No, they did not. I had to keep the family secret about the home [the clutter] and I probably could have been removed from the home [by Child Protective Services] if it were ever found out. So I was never allowed [to bring classmates over to the house], and it kept me from really getting close to people. And they both had post-traumatic stress syndrome, even though there was no name for it in those days.
My parents should have divorced but in those days they didn’t believe in it. And there certainly was a lot in my religion, there’s a word for it in Yiddish, Shanda – “disgrace.” A disgrace to get divorced. It was the old-school thinking, they were European. They didn’t’ believe in it. But my mother told me at the end of her life, “If I were born in your generation, and in this day in age, I would have divorced your father after one year of marriage.” I feel there’s no stigma to divorce. I feel it’s better to be happily alone than miserably together. And I respect people who will divorce because they’re not compatible. Sometimes people grow apart. I have no issues with divorce. I think it’s a wonderful option in certain cases (laughs). Unfortunate, but wonderful at the same time (laughs).
That was a fundamental thing you missed out on, not having friends over to your house.
And my mother told me on her deathbed — I’ll never forget this, it makes me very angry — she said to me, ‘I taught you how to be alone.’ In other words, that was my legacy. I hated that. I hated that.
How has that affected your ability to help yourself feel less alone? To make friends?
I’ve always had a very engaging personality, to be honest. I was even able to engage my mother to speak a little bit about her experiences [in the camps]. She had a bad marriage to my father and that was very painful too. We never went on vacation. We never went out to eat. She did go out to eat with me alone when I was an adult. She kept Kosher so she wouldn’t eat meat or shellfish. But she would eat other foods in restaurants with me. But as a kid I just felt so weird. We never went on vacation. We never did the things that other families did.
Were you aware that your family was different?
(Big laugh). Was I aware? That’s a joke. I knew! I kept on wishing I didn’t have these damaged European parents. I longed for normal — “normal” in quotation marks (laughs) — American parents. I said, ‘Why did I get stuck with these weirdos’? All the time I knew that they weren’t able to be good parents; it’s not that I’m blaming them. To top it off, I had a sister that was abusive, who I don’t even talk to. An older, but not wiser sister.
I ask because a lot of children that come from dysfunctional families sometimes don’t even realize how dysfunctional their families are.
I was well aware. One time a therapist said that’s what makes me normal, that I knew that my family wasn’t normal. But I am normal, relatively speaking (laughs). I mean, I have issues, coming from that background. But I knew 100 percent that it wasn’t normal. In fact, some of the ways I was raised were downright abusive. I was beaten at times, I mean physical abuse, if I didn’t tow the line. But I didn’t actually realize there was abuse involved. I was neglected and abused. Neglect is a form of abuse. Mainly I was neglected. Although I think both my parents cared about me: they wanted to see me do well and go to college, and they paid for it. I knew that they loved me but I was very insecure and I remember saying to my mother, who never showed me any affection, “Ma, do you love me?” And she would hate that! She would hate when I asked her! She’d say, “What’s wrong with you? Why are you so insecure?” Of course I’m insecure. She never once said spontaneously, “I love you.” Which is a normal thing [for parents] to do. I’ve heard it from other parents saying it to their kids. I never once heard it. So of course I was insecure.
As I read more about loneliness and how social we are as humans, I’m realizing that a secure, loving attachment between parent and child is critical for development and emotional stability. I’m wondering if they hugged you as a kid.
A: None. Never. Never hugged me.
As an infant you probably weren’t held…
A: I think my mother must’ve held me when I was an infant. Because she had to change me. She actually loved babies. She always would tell me that. She said it was easy to make them happy: you just fed them and you changed them. She had a thing about babies. She never took pictures of me, that’s another thing. There were hardly any pictures of me, nor of my sister really. And I remember one picture when I was about four or five and I looked very (pauses) not happy, like I was mad. And another thing, I think it was rather cruel, that my mother told me. She told me that she had no intention of having a second child — I was the second child. And my mother told me she had no intention of having any more children because she almost died in childbirth with my sister. And the only reason she had me was because my sister started crying that she wanted a sibling. She wanted a baby brother or sister, when she was around four-and-a-half. And my mother said, “God forbid my sister would be the lonely, only one” so she decided to try. And my sister, who supposedly wanted a sibling, got sick of this human toy after about three minutes. So she had nothing to do with me. So we’re estranged now. She was very cruel to me. As an adult she was worse to me than as a child (laughs).
I’m interested in how your connections make you feel less lonely. Have you ever felt any deep, safe, secure connection with somebody?
To be honest I’ve never had a serious relationship with a guy. And I haven’t dated in years. At this point nobody’s interested (laughs), which is frustrating. I would love to have a relationship. I don’t know, I’ve tried dating. I have dated in the past, but not in decades. I’ve never been in love. I knew these guys [I dated] weren’t right for me.
When have you felt most connected? When you didn’t feel so alone?
Well, I enjoy my girlfriends’ company, I have a couple of girlfriends. And this new girl…well, she’s not a girl, she’s as old as me! She’s five years older. Yet she seems to be a man magnet! I couldn’t believe it. We went out to this bar and this guy, a young guy, paid for our drinks! I couldn’t believe it (laughs). She’s been married twice, but she said that in California everybody’s been married twice (laughs). So I enjoy her company. She knows about my life. She had a good upbringing with nice parents. She was very close to her parents. Unlike me, she has a lot of support in her life. She has two grown daughters. One of her sisters she’s estranged from, but the other sister she gets along great with. So I envy her. I told her that.
When you were working did you feel any more connected?
No, I hated my job. It was a blue collar job. I hated the job. And the people — the women especially — were incredibly nasty to me. It was because I was educated and they just tried to cut me down. They hated me because I didn’t fit in. I was a magna cum laude college graduate (laughs).
What kind of work was it?
A: Post office.
Did you have a route?
No, I worked inside. I never met such unbelievable, nasty people in my life. I did meet a few people that I liked. And there’s only one person who I’m still in touch with, an Asian woman, whom I get along with. I remember I hated that place so much and the people were so nasty that I retired young at only 59, after 30 years. 30 years in a job I hated. But I got a small pension. I chose to go part time because I hated the job so much.
Obviously a hostile work environment.
Oh, very hostile. There were so many days I’d come home and I’d be crying.
Where did you go to college?
To an elite school in Canada. I studied liberal arts. But I have a lot of regrets. I should have been a guidance counselor. I was halfway through the guidance program at [a local college]. I was halfway done but I didn’t want to go to the new campus.
Why didn’t you want to go to the new campus?
Because I didn’t drive and it wasn’t convenient. So I quit. And I thought about going back but by the time I called to get back in they told me my credits were too old. This new friend told me that was ridiculous. But I should have asked to speak to the dean to see if they still wouldn’t have let me go back. I didn’t want to start from scratch. I wanted to be a guidance counselor because my guidance counselor in high school was the only encouraging adult that I ever met growing up. And I wanted to be that encouraging adult to some kids who might need it. I wanted to be encouraging. And I would have been great at it.
So I have a lot of regrets. I should have gone to some alternative college that would’ve accepted my credits, or at least some of them. But because I didn’t follow through, I missed out. And now I have no interest in being a guidance counselor. So I screwed up and I have a lot of regrets.
And there was a guy I should have given a chance to. But I was so difficult, I was so opinionated when I was in my ‘20s. I remember meeting this guy and finding out he still lived with his parents. Because I had lived on my own for so long and I wanted to get away from my family (laughs), I just couldn’t understand it. And I understand why now, but I didn’t go out with him the second time because of that.
Because you were afraid to get close to somebody?
No. He was extremely nice. I put a personal ad in the paper and he responded and he was a lovely person. But he didn’t make enough money to be able to afford to live on his own. He was a dinner theater manager, and I actually loved what he did. He was an artistic type, and I thought it was great. I’m so angry at myself because he might’ve been a good guy for me. And my mother used to say to me, “How ridiculous! He’s smart, he’s saving money!” And in hindsight I realize it. But I didn’t want somebody who was used to having their mother wait on them. I didn’t want a mama’s boy. And I don’t think he was a mama’s boy. He just was doing it for monetary reasons.
But at that point in your life you couldn’t see that because you were so torn up from wanting to get away from your parents and you couldn’t imagine somebody living happily with their parents.
Exactly. I wanted a guy who was independent. I didn’t mind if they had a good relationship with their parents. That’s wonderful for them. But I didn’t want somebody who still lived at home. I was adamant about that. And foolishly adamant. My mother was right in that respect. I shouldn’t have been prejudiced against anybody who lived at home.
Are you ashamed to admit you’re lonely?
I’m not really ashamed to admit it. I was a lot lonelier before I got into the digital age. I didn’t know how to use a computer. I didn’t have computers or cell phones. In 2005 I got into the digital age. That helped connect me a little bit. It also isolates too.
I like that you said you feel more connected in some ways.
In some ways. I had oral cancer, and I belonged to a tongue cancer survivor group on Facebook. And I actually have another disease called Wilson’s disease, and I belong to a Wilson’s disease Facebook group. So, it’s helpful. I’ve given advice, sometimes other people give me advice. It’s very useful.
Does that make you feel some level of connection?
I met somebody [on the Facebook group]. It’s so sad, I feel so bad for her. Her husband has tongue cancer. She lives locally and I met her through [the group].
Did you ever meet up with her in person?
Yes, I met her! We went to an oral cancer support meeting. She’s dealing with her husband’s cancer. He doesn’t go to [the meetings], for some reason he doesn’t want to go. He had radiation and chemo, unlike me, and I advised her that you’re never the same after that, but her husband had it anyway. The reality is people usually have recurrences from the radiation and the chemo. I’m probably the only person in my Facebook group who hasn’t had a recurrence. But I don’t fault these people. They trust their doctors. Their doctors are stupid. They wouldn’t allow their own family to do this. If you read up on this, oncologists won’t let their families go through chemo. That’s the only thing they offer to patients. Guaranteed it makes it recur. I’m the only one who’s never had a recurrence. I would say 80-90 percent have had recurrences. Now it’s only been less than two years and, knock on wood, I don’t get [a recurrence], because they said after five years you could be cancer free. But I’ve heard of people who, five years later, they get it! I won’t. I take a lot of anti-cancer and anti-oxidants and supplements. I pray I won’t get it again. I feel terrible for them. Some of them have to be on feeding tubes. I’m telling you, it’s one of the worst cancers to ever have. I had to have half my tongue removed, and they reconstructed it from my thigh. I believe I shouldn’t have had half my tongue removed. That’s why I have a pronounced lisp now which I never had. Now I have this awful lisp, but everybody understands me and I speak fairly well. Some people don’t even notice that I have a lisp.
I was wondering if your cancer diagnosis and the aftermath of that made you feel more lonely.
Oh yes. Because I lost a couple of friends who were not supportive of me.
My friend is in a similar situation when he lost both of his parents and some of his friends didn’t know how to act around him.
What happened to your friend?
He lost both of his parents to cancer within about two years of each other.
People don’t know how to deal with that stuff.
It kind of freaked his friends out. They thought he was being a downer. They just didn’t understand.
Yeah, I get it. I totally get it. He probably was close to his family. So it was very difficult for him. To be honest, I was not supportive of a woman who lost her parents young too. They both had cancer and she lost them within a year of each other. She was an adult I met when I was in my ‘20s. She lost them and had some kind of a breakdown. And I remember I couldn’t listen to her. She would call me and want to talk for hours on the phone and I couldn’t handle it. I thought she needed to see a psychiatrist or a therapist. And I couldn’t be there for her in that way. And so I told her she had to stop calling. And I feel guilty for that because I miss this woman. We were friendly before and I’ve been looking for her on Facebook but I can’t find her. But I feel sad that I wasn’t able to support her the way she needed.
You said you lost some friends after your diagnosis?
Two of them. One was from college. We weren’t super friendly, but she had her own issues. She had a daughter who was very disabled, so she was a full-time caretaker. So I feel sorry for her. But yet when I called her other daughter who’s a nurse and I said to her daughter, ‘I have cancer,’ her daughter, with her mother right next to her, never came on the phone. That hurt me. That hurt me that she never called to say I’m sorry. That’s all I expected, that she would say I’m so sorry for your illness. People are freaked out by cancer. And her father died of cancer, so it was ironic that she never called me.
Maybe her father’s cancer diagnosis was so traumatic to her that she…
Yes, it was traumatic. I loved her father. I knew her father. I remember going to his funeral. It was horrible. He was so super friendly, I loved that guy. She couldn’t be bothered to say ‘I’m sorry you’re going through this”? So I couldn’t be bothered being her friend. Can you understand that?
Absolutely. People can be devastatingly disappointing.
And cruel!
There’s a researcher I’ve been reading and he says that loneliness has an element of feeling threatened socially, of being judged and rejected. Do you agree with that?
A: I do, because I was talking to somebody who potentially wanted to be a member of my group but he decided not to. He’s not gay, but he was looking for male friends. And I told him that very few men ever attended and so he wasn’t [part of the group]. But we texted a lot. And he told me he had the most wonderful childhood. And I told him I had a miserable, lonely childhood. And I could tell he kind of couldn’t relate to it. So I feel that people don’t want to hear that. They don’t want to hear you’re strangers from your only sibling. They don’t want to hear that! They judge you! Some people do judge you. They absolutely do judge you.
There’s very valid reasons why I’m estranged. I do it for my mental health (laughs). I have to for my emotional health because [my sister’s] crazy, literally (laughs). Even though she’s married and has four kids — four grown kids – emotionally, I cannot deal with her. And like I said, she was always unfriendly, unkind, and cruel to me as a child. As an adult it got worse. She stole all kinds of money. My father had left some money in a trust for me in a bank account and she stole it. She had him sign the withdrawal slip. He was ill already and he didn’t know what he was doing, and she had him sign it and she got it. And her excuse was — get this — “Well you never married and you never had kids.” So what does that make me, less his daughter (laughs)? I really have had poor luck when it comes to family.
When you’re at Meetups and other kinds of gatherings do you feel self-conscious or that you’re going to be judged?
I tend to be a person who’s very open about various things. When I’m just meeting somebody I’m not that open because I don’t want to scare somebody off and I don’t think they want to hear all this crap (laughs). So I know enough not to spill my guts when I just meet somebody. But after a while if I’m very friendly with them and, yeah, I talk about my history. I’ve talked about my parents being Holocaust survivors, even initially if it comes up somehow. And people are shocked. I’m one in a million. Well there a lot of children of Holocaust survivors, but they’re shocked.
I’d like to read you some statistics about increasing amount of isolation in America…
You don’t have to tell me, I know it’s true. It’s obvious…people are only connected to their cell phones, not to people!
It’s not necessarily that simple. You were able to connect with Meetup and Facebook and that gives you a sense of connection.
Well, I finally got into the computer age. Before that I was very isolated. Well, Meetup has helped.
There was a study that was done in 1984 that asked people how many confidants they had in their lives whom they could discuss important matters with. About 10 percent said they had nobody they could confide in in 1984.
That’s sad.
It is sad. And then in 2004 they did this same study again and that number had nearly tripled to 25%.
Wow. Tripled. It’s ironic because cell phones and the computer and the internet was supposed to bring us closer together and in many ways it has widened the distance. You know, I’ll tell you I’m a very strong person. A therapist once said to me that another person who’s had your life would have killed themselves (crying).
First of all, you are a stunning person. That’s why I thought of you for the interview.
I’m a what person?
A stunning person.
I’m not stunning! I just wouldn’t let anything get me to the point of doing that. And I have thought about suicide when I was much younger. But bottom line is, life is worth living, under any circumstances. Well, under most circumstances, I shouldn’t say under any circumstances (laughs). But life is intrinsically worthwhile.
You know, the same part of the brain that registers physical pain also registers loneliness.
For some reason, I would escape somehow emotionally. But it [got to be] painful year after year, not having anybody. Well, I had a few friends, and then I lost those friends after the cancer. Women that I knew for over thirty years. I knew them from my 20s. It still hurts. I wrote an email to one of the two women and she never responded. I said, “I never expected you to be that cold.” But she’s married to an awful man. And he’s really the reason she’s changed. Because ever since she’s married him she’s gotten weirder and weirder. He’s crazy and now’s she’s crazy too (laughs).
The worst thing is when someone doesn’t communicate with you. Because I’m a communicator and if someone doesn’t tell you if you annoyed them or some way hurt their feelings, and they don’t let you know, it drives you crazy. Like right now I have another friend who lashed out at me, threw everything but the kitchen sink at me. I was in such shock because she never communicated [her anger] earlier. A person needs to know how to communicate.
Loneliness really does stuff to you.
It does make you needy. I find that I’m a little too needy. More needy than I’d like to be, emotionally needy.
It becomes a vicious cycle because the needier you seem to people the more people move away from you.
Exactly. It does become a vicious cycle. People have to keep up their friendships.
My mother used to say, “You never know from one day to the next. Things can change dramatically.” So I never totally give up hope.
You never know.
I didn’t expect to meet this lovely lady from California.
It’s scary and funny at the same time that some of the biggest things in our lives like meeting the love of our life or getting that job we always wanted comes down sometimes to luck.
Yes, a lot of it is luck. This woman I met takes the train because she chooses not to drive in the city, and go figure, I met her and we started talking at the bus stop near my house. And she asked me, which was wonderful. She said, “Let’s exchange phone numbers.” Usually it’s me who suggests that. But she suggested it. It made me feel great. I probably don’t sound like that lonely a person (laughs) — I sometimes feel it more than other times. But I pray and I keep a gratitude journal. Because no matter what I don’t have, I have so many blessings. I realized that that has helped me. Being an engaging person that’s willing to put myself out there and talk to people, that helps me.
I find it incredibly difficult to be alone when you’re older. Growing old alone, not having a support network, that’s the worst thing. Nobody visited me in the hospital. I was in there nine days. I asked for a chaplain every day I was in there because I had nobody visiting me.
I know you said earlier some of your friends deserted you.
Yeah, a couple of them. They totally deserted me. Nobody ever inquired as to how I was doing. Through my Meetup I met this retired nurse. She was pretty good but now she’s got a boyfriend so… (laughs). She was nice to me because she went with me to one appointment. I thought that was so nice. She drove me when I was still weak, right after I got out of the hospital. She drove me to get groceries, and to get certain things at Whole Foods. It was nice of her. She leads a very active life and she’s not lonely at all (laughs). She’s got her daughters, she’s got her new boyfriend who’s about ten years younger than her (laughs). She’s unreal. She’s a very attractive woman.
I’m stunned nobody visited you in the hospital.
Well, part of it’s my own fault. I knew I was afraid I’d be disfigured, and I was for a while. My throat had swollen up enormously, and I felt freakish. So I knew this was going to happen and I had said, “I’m going to be very unattractive so…” I don’t think I wanted people to visit me. But the retired nurse did come to visit me. She did visit me at the end. But it was like the eighth day! I had to suffer alone almost eight days. She visited me and she was very kind.
But at the same time I let people know that I didn’t think I wanted any visitors. That was foolish on my part. I didn’t want people to be freaked out by my appearance. I couldn’t talk for the first six days because they did this stupid uncappable tracheostomy. The doctor promised me he was going to do one that was cappable right away. He didn’t. He did one that was uncappable so I couldn’t talk. So that was very frustrating. I’ll tell you, one thing you want to avoid is any hospital because you lose all your rights (laughs).
I’ve had lifelong loneliness. Given my background you can understand why. My family was never there for me emotionally. It’s no wonder. But I’m a survivor. And I don’t give in, and I don’t give up (laughs). I’m fairly resilient. I went through the school of hard knocks. I made a lot of mistakes with people because I didn’t have a normal background. And I didn’t know how to relate to people. I was very needy. I still have issues, but I think I’ve overcome it to some extent. But sometimes other people have issues: they don’t communicate well, and it’s not always me.
I think self forgiveness is a huge thing.
Oh yea, absolutely. We’re all doing the best we can at any point in time.
(Interview done by Steven)