Sympathy

I’ve got this mate, known ’em since forever. They’re a quiet sort, bit on the spectrum, and not feeling too great.

See, they’ve been wrestling with the blues, and it got even worse when they lost their partner of two decades to cancer. And here’s the kicker, it all happened like a flash, and their partner was expecting a little one too.

Now, this bloke, or call ’em what you like, had a wee lad who was almost three when their partner passed. At first, they got loads of help, you know, folks bringing over grub, friends checking in to make sure they weren’t left on their tod for too long. Work even cut ’em some slack in light of the shock. That carried on for about two years, and then came the lockdown.

After that, they were left to fend for themselves with their five-year-old. These days, it’s just school and the in-laws looking after the kid.

Why’d this happen, you ask? Well, my mate reckons it’s sympathy that did ’em in. Them kind words were thrown about so much, but there was no real change in their mental state, so they sort of lost their meaning.

When it turned into these twice-a-year check-ins, it stopped meaning anything at all. Loneliness became their constant companion. “No more pity,” they’d whisper.

Their depression turned into a shield, a way to not give a damn about how others made ’em feel. Their emotions became something they kept locked away, like a precious treasure never to be shared again.

That old dinosaur’s heart of theirs turned back to stone, and the world didn’t even take notice.