It's hard when you lose a partner after more than thirty five years of marriage, especially when those years had been as good as those that Doris and I had shared. I'd even taken early retirement when I got to sixty and we'd planned to buy a four-wheel drive and camper van and travel around the country.
We'd bought the vehicle and camper and were just a week away from beginning our travels when worst blow in my life fell upon me.
I'd been out buying a few more things for our trip and came home to find Doris lying on the kitchen floor. She had also been out shopping and her purchases were on the kitchen table. She must have come home and simply collapsed.
I rang for the ambulance and travelled with her in it to the hospital. The paramedics in the ambulance kept doing things to her but said nothing. It wasn't until we got to the emergency department in the hospital that I was told that Doris was dead.
"Dead on arrival," was the official verdict, but for me, dead from my life was the real conclusion. It was an undiagnosed heart problem that brought her and, so I thought, my life to an end. That's how I saw and felt it to be at that time.
Without Doris in my life I was in what I thought of as "The Valley of the Shadow." It was as if half of my self had been torn away, and there was a great gaping emotional wound.
For almost a year I shut my self away from the world, only sallying out of the house to buy food and other essentials. We had no children and as for the rest of the family and friends, I didn't want to see or speak to anyone. I was living almost like a hermit with only my cat Arthur for company; a hermit who was angry with the world and God for depriving me of Doris.
After a year had passed I started to recover and began socialising again. Part of that socialising included a return to attending church. One morning during the service the minister announced that the church was setting up computer classes for over sixties.
He pointed out that older people now wanted to use computers, even if only to try and keep up with their grandchildren, but that most of the classes available were expensive and not designed to cater for older people.
The main point was that volunteer teachers were being sought and if there was anyone in the congregation who could help out, etc. etc.
Having been computer literate for some time I decided I would volunteer.
An old church hall was to be used for one day a week as the classroom, and computers appeared from I knew not where as if by some new version of the miracle of the loaves and fishes.
Teaching was on a one to one basis so that instruction could be given at a rate adapted to the learner's pace. The cost to the learner was very small indeed.
On the day the classes were held each teacher had four students, each student receiving one hour per week of instruction over a period of ten weeks.
The ages of the students ranged from sixty upward, one student I can recall was ninety three. I was specialising in Microsoft Word and Publisher and for the first ten week term I had two students doing Word and two Publisher.
One thing that became obvious fairly quickly was that some of the students were not particularly concerned to learn computer; what they really wanted and needed was the one hour of someone's undivided attention.
This pointed to the loneliness and isolation of some elderly people. I seemed to spend a great deal of time listening to my students talking about their ailments, neglectful children and their feelings of being superfluous to mainstream life.
During the first of those ten week terms my last student of the day was a tiny little woman called Jessica. Coming originally from Malaysia she was chocolate in colour, and her hair, despite the fact that she must have been over sixty, was jet black without a trace of grey. Her eyes were dark brown and brilliantly alive, and I was particularly taken by her wide mouth with its frequent smile displaying near perfect white teeth. I thought she must be an indigenous Malaysian, rather than one of the later arrivals from China.
Along with her tiny stature, everything about her seemed so delicate, and me being six feet two inches tall she made me feel like a clumsy brute.
She displayed a quick intelligence, listening carefully and asking pertinent questions in a voice that seemed to sing rather than simply speak.
For the first three sessions she progressed well, but during the third session she said, "My computer not do what this one do, why that?"
I had to admit that she had me stumped until she said, "It not have all those things that this one have." By "those things" she meant the various shortcut icons.
I decided that she lacked "those things" because they had not been put there from Tools on the Menu Bar, and set about instructing her how to do this.
The following week Jessica said rather plaintively, "I try to do what you say, but there nothing."
Being a bit of a sucker for a damsel in distress, and I suppose because I'd taken a particular liking to Jessica, I asked her where she lived. It happened her house was not too far from where we held our classes, so I said, "Suppose when we finish here I come to your house and have a look at your computer?"
She smiled and said, "You do that...you do that? I pay you."
I returned her smile – in fact it was hard not to smile when Jessica smiled – and said, "There's no need to pay me, I shall be pleased to do it."
"You very kind," she said softly, "you kind man, I like you."
I don't think I'm easily embarrassed, but I must admit her response made me blush.
At the end of the lesson I followed her car in mine. When we arrived at her house I was struck by the neatness of the garden, and it seemed to fit in so well with Jessica's trim tidy figure.
The inside her small house was just the same, neat and orderly, yet exceedingly colourful, with curtains, upholstery, cushions and rugs a riot of reds, green, and blues. I was taken to what must have once been a bedroom, but was now apparently a study, with well filled bookshelves. I could see that some of the books were in English, but others were in what I took to be Malaysian.
On a desk stood the computer and settling down in front of it and booting it up I quickly saw the problem. Jessica had been a first time computer buyer, and like many first time buyers she hadn't really known what she was looking for. The machine had been sold to her with a very cheap programme installed, and it was impossible for her to carry out the functions of the more expensive but flexible programmes we used for teaching purposes.
I pointed this out to her, stressing the limitations of her programme and she asked, "What must I do?"
"Well, I replied, you can live with what you've got or install another programme. If you decide to install another programme like the one at our classes, it'll cost you a bit."
"Ah, yes, I have money, I would like."
"You mean you do want to install a new programme?"
"Yes, that I would like; but how I do it?"
"Would you like me to do it for you?" I asked. "I can buy what is necessary and come and install it."
"You would do that, David?"
"Yes, no problem."
"Then I must pay you."
That began a bit of a verbal tussle but I finally got it through to her I did not want paying. This led on to further cross purpose talk since Jessica insisted she must reward me, the reward offered being that me and my wife have dinner with her one evening. I had to point out that I was a widower, and she said it was because I was still wearing a wedding ring she thought I must have a wife.
Jessica went on to say that, "I too have been alone for two years."
I jokingly pointed out that she was also wearing a wedding ring.
"Ah yes, but what must I do. Put in drawer and forget past years, no I not forget, and you too I think."
No I don't forget those years," I replied. This led on to talk of our late partners; the grief we experienced at their loss, and the loneliness that came with that grief.
She said, "I hear that many men not eat properly when they lose wife; you cook?"
I grinned and said, "Well, after a fashion. In fact I'd better be going because I've got to get my evening meal ready."
