Loneliness

One of the downsides of moving a parent close to you from another state is the loneliness they experience. Take my mother, for example.

She left the area she'd lived in all her life. Nurse retirees who kept in touch. The church friends from 50 years plus. For two years now, she's been in a condo less than half a mile from me. We talk every day, and I see her at her place or mine at least four days a week. She attends church and Sunday school, some ladies luncheons through the church, but she has no one to just "talk" to. No one to call here and say, "can you come for coffee". No one to drop in to visit but me.

She is lonely. It's evident in the way she talks and she has even said so once or twice. I keep searching for groups or places I can take her. Even so, it must be hard to make new friends at 85. I'm all she has.