Carol called.

It’s been several years since I heard from her.

Now 85, she was once a client I helped through some really tough years.

Now in a wheelchair, she said she’d made it through the pandemic while most of her friends and neighbors had succumbed.

I explained I’ve been working from home for a couple years writing grants and doing donor relations work. She said she found my number in some papers and “just needed to hear your voice…someone’s voice today.”

She was always a tough, independent character who could take a joke and dish one better right back. But today her voice was different.

She has no one anymore. Friends and family are all gone and she doesn’t get out. I had found her a terrier pup way back but Trixie crossed the bridge several months ago.

Small talk wound down when in closing she said “It’s good to hear your voice.”

As we hung up I vowed to phone her for a chat on Friday mornings when I’m off work and while I’m still six feet above.

She’s just 20 years older than me.

That fact is deafening.

No one should have no one.