Article December 27, 2004 Issue

NEVER ALONE

Back in 1990 the movie Home Alone was released in theaters at the holiday season. It tells adventures of a young boy, played by Macaulay Culkin, who is mistakenly left alone when the rest of his family goes on a Christmas vaction. With wit and cleverness, he manages to have an exciting time and learn a few things about himself.

By Tom Black

But for many people, the thought of being home alone is not fanciful. It's fearful—especially during the holidays, when many people anticipate gathering with loved ones. One big reason is simple loneliness. Isolation. A basic yearning all people have is to feel loved and cared about. And what loneliness amounts to is the empty feeling of being unloved, forgotten, even rejected. Of course, these feelings can drop over any of us like a dark blanket at any season, but they seem more common when the general expectation for companionship is especially high.

Though people find solutions for these situations, it's never possible to guarantee you'll always have someone around who cares. Most of us know this from experience. There are some of us who don't have close relatives anymore, or whose friends and loved ones live far away. And like the little boy in Home Alone, even loved relatives can fall through society's cracks.

One January some years ago a meek and elderly aunt said quietly to me, "I had hoped you could come see me during the holidays." It was a gentle but painful rebuke. Sometimes we neglect those who need us most, because of busy schedules. Or we simply forget. Or, worse yet, we invent some way to rationalize callous indifference. Other times, dear relatives—out of fear of becoming a burden or making us feel obliged to help them—can sink into a sad, stubborn refusal to let themselves be loved.