The lonely Grandpa Breakfast Club

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My dad is lonely.  He’s off the charts lonely.  Over the top lonely.   My mother passed away over a year ago and he has not recovered.   I’m not sure that he ever will.   They were married for almost 60 years and were inseparable.  Now he is 88 years old with beginning dementia and he spends most of his time alone in the house they shared with tears in his eyes.

It’s heartbreaking.  I do what I can to visit, but the thing he loves the most is going out to breakfast.  Nothing can perk him up like an invitation to breakfast.  He says it gets his day going in the right direction, and most importantly, it gets him out of the house.

We go to the same restaurant every day and guess what?  We see the same people every day.  Doing the same thing.  Getting out of the house and getting their day going in the right direction.  And many of them are sitting alone.  But they are there every single day.  The waitresses know them all by first name and they know their stories too.  She just lost her husband, his wife just went into the nursing home….  We nod and say hi, but that’s about it.

Time and time again, I ask my dad to invite one of the regulars to sit with him and the answer is always the same… I’m scared, I don’t know them, maybe they want to be alone (NOOOOOO), I don’t know what to talk to them about….

Sad!!!  So sad.  I know my dad is not the only lonely heart out there.  And I know there are scenes like this playing out in every town across the country.

Can’t we get these lonely people together???   How can we get these lonely people together?  Do you have a grandparent that is lonely?  Or do you know someone from Church who always sits alone?  Then you know the pain of loneliness – shouldn’t it be easy enough to fix?

I’m sure the restaurant managers will agree that something needs to be done to help these people find each other.  Maybe a breakfast club could be formed.  And while it’s getting started, maybe some teens could join them to get the conversation going!  It breaks my heart to see them all sitting by themselves staring out the window.  Let’s get them together!

 

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