“I don’t know how to move forward. The thought of loneliness and helpless old age terrifies me…” The story of a woman who has been through it all and ended up alone.
Sometimes it feels like my life is a long, drawn-out film destined to end without happiness. I’m 62 years old, sitting by the window of my small flat on the outskirts of Liverpool, watching cars pass by, and pondering how quickly everything slipped away. Everything’s gone. I’m left here alone—with anxiety inside and fear of what tomorrow may bring.
Fourteen years ago, my life split into ‘before’ and ‘after.’ First, my father passed away—he fought cancer, and every breath he took was like a hammer to the heart. A few months later, I lost my younger sister to the same illness, the same hopeless hell. Then came a surprise I never anticipated: my mum rapidly developed dementia. She stopped recognizing faces, mixed up night and day, got lost in her own home. From an independent adult, she became like a helpless child. And 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 went to someone young, carefree, unburdened. I was left alone—with my ailing mother and a daughter from my first marriage who loathed me.
She never forgave me for remarrying. When I married again, she was eleven, and it turned out she’d been harboring resentment all those years. We became strangers. I had no one to turn to for help. Friends drifted away, acquaintances stopped calling. I was barely surviving, overwhelmed by pain and exhaustion, yet refused to break. Regular sessions with a counselor were my lifeline. Mum was like a newborn—I fed her with a spoon, changed nappies, bathed her, sang lullabies when she cried at night. We faced it all: strokes, a fractured hip, a tough surgery. I lived on the edge for six years.
Then, she passed away.
You’d think I could breathe easier. But no. Instead of relief, there was emptiness. And with my daughter—only pain. Constant reproach, complaints, accusations: that I don’t help her enough financially, that she can’t afford a holiday due to not finding a “proper job,” and of course, all of it is apparently my fault. My fault for her stepfather leaving, for not being supportive when she struggled, for having her at the wrong time, with the wrong person.
I transferred ownership of my flat to her. Only my counselor knows how many tears, nerves, and sleepless nights it cost me. Then I was diagnosed with cancer. A hellish diagnosis. Chemo. Surgery. And rows. My daughter moved in temporarily—not out of compassion, but because it was uncertain if I’d pull through. She was there physically but her heart and mind were distant.
It’s been six years since. Thankfully, my health has stabilized. I’m working again, finding joy in little things, slowly piecing myself back together. My daughter got married, had a wonderful baby. They live apart. We communicate, but I always sense how fragile our bond is. One misstep could shatter it.
I’m living. But it’s as if I’m not quite whole. Inside, there’s loneliness. In the evenings, I return home and the silence is deafening. During the pandemic, this feeling became unbearable. Friends moved on or got absorbed into their families. No one calls. There’s no one to tell about my dreams. No one to complain to about a pain in my leg. No one to ask, “Have you eaten today, Elizabeth?”
I remember when I was needed. When I cooked dinners, ironed school uniforms, knitted socks, rushed to hospitals, collected paperwork, sat by my ill mother’s bedside through the night. Now—silence. No one’s waiting. Nowhere to be needed. And that frightens me. Frightens me so much that sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat—thinking about how I might fall in the bathroom one day, and no one would find out. That one day I might just disappear, and the world wouldn’t notice.
I fear the future. I’m terrified of becoming that old lady with a vacant gaze, sitting on a doorstep just to hear a voice. I don’t want pity. I’m not seeking sympathy. I just want to matter to someone. Even just a little.
Thank you for reading to the end. It means today, I was heard. And that means I’m not completely alone yet.
