Today I met Brendan. I was off on another assignment for my embarrassment of a newspaper with Shannon. She was multi-tasking, of course, and talking to the elderly about being alone on Christmas (which was a bit awakward to ask) and if they would be attending Christmas Mass. Brendan was an instant target with his slight slouch, driver's cap, and a pair of kind eyes accented with deep crow's feet; a cute old man at his finest. We huddled together under a canopy hoping to get some shelter from the misty and raging cold wind. Brendan was probably the fifth person Shannon had talked to and I begun to realize even though these people weren't "alone on Christmas" like the subjects we were looking for, they were still alone. Once you got to talking, it was hard to leave. They skipped their buses, they stood in the freezing cold and they gave you trinkets just to have the chance to sit and talk to someone. I got the feeling Brendan didn't care who we were, why were talking to him or frankly, what we were even talking about. His eyes simply lit up with the chance to talk about his family and his wife who passed away over 30 years ago. Amazingly and sadly, I'm not sure if his heart ever mended after that. I could tell how much he missed her and it made me hope that someday when I'm old, I won't be alone: in any sense of the word. One elderly lady even said, " It's important not to be alone, the ones you care about are the ones that keep you going."
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