Letters from Awriterstip – Week 6
The Weight of a Lonely Cross...
Dear Readers,
There comes a time in life when silence speaks louder than any words. You begin to notice how people drift away, how love fades, how bonds you thought were unbreakable turn into dust scattered by the smallest winds. People often say that time heals, but they don’t tell you that time also reveals that some hearts were never really tied to yours, and that some people can forget you as easily as changing a shirt.
For some, forgetting is effortless. They walk away, they smile, they rebuild, and they laugh as though nothing was ever lost. For others, souls like mine, forgiving might be possible, but forgetting never is. Because when you have loved with depth, when someone once made your life feel whole, their absence is not just a gap. It is a wound, one that never fully closes.
It is in that space of abandonment where the cruellest truths of the world come alive. People can make you feel like a side dish, there when they crave you, gone when they don’t. You realise you were never the centre of their story, only a convenient chapter. And the worst part is not illness, not age, not the body weakening, it is realising you were replaceable in hearts you thought would carry you forever.
I remember sitting in hospital waiting rooms, watching others surrounded by children, spouses, or friends who hovered with worry. Then the nurse would call my name, and I would rise alone. Inside, the doctor would glance at my papers, then at me, and he would ask softly, almost puzzled: “Why are you alone? Why isn’t anyone with you? You should be accompanied by someone.”
And I would say the same thing every time, my voice carrying more weight than the words themselves: “I have no one. I have no family.”
After that, there would be silence. A silence that told me everything, he had no words to fill that void, because there were none. That silence was the sound of reality.
The diagnosis never frightened me as much as that silence did. Because you see, illness is one kind of suffering. A broken body can still be treated, and medicines can still be prescribed. But a broken soul, broken by betrayal, by loneliness, by the sting of being used, no doctor in the world has a cure for that.
I have seen people die alone. Some were abandoned by their families because looking after them was too great a burden. Others were neglected because their presence was treated as an inconvenience. And some, perhaps the most tragic, were treated as though their care was a favour granted reluctantly, not a duty of love.
And so I began to think, perhaps it is better to walk away from everyone. Perhaps it is better to cut all ties, not out of hatred, not out of disrespect, but out of exhaustion. To wait no longer for footsteps that will never come. To expect no hand that will not reach. To die alone in peace rather than live with the humiliation of false love and empty promises.
Yes, I have loved. I have given my heart fully, deeply, and honestly. And I have been taken for a ride, treated like a fool, manipulated by the very ones I trusted most. That is the wound that bleeds without end. Illness can take your body, but betrayal takes your soul. Between the two, the choice is clear: I would rather suffer with sickness than the cruelty of false love.
So I carry this thought: better to suffer like Jesus did, carrying the cross, than to suffer the cruelty of people who never valued you. Jesus carried His cross not because He was worthless, but because His suffering had meaning. And in my own small way, I, too, carry a cross, loneliness, betrayal, and abandonment. It is not holy, perhaps, but it is real. And it has weight.
And still, in the midst of all this, I whisper a prayer. I thank God for keeping me alive as long as I can live. Because even if I walk alone, even if the world has turned its back, He has given me breath for one more day. And that, in itself, is something sacred.
The reality of this world is simple, and it is brutal: many will forget you, many will abandon you, many will let you die alone. Not because you deserved it, not because you were unworthy, but because love for them was shallow, convenience-driven, or never true to begin with.
Yet even in this, I see a strange kind of dignity. To cut away falsehood, to embrace solitude, to stand alone rather than kneel for scraps of affection, that is not weakness. That is a strength. It is choosing silence over manipulation, dignity over dependence.
So when I say that illness does not frighten me, I mean it. What frightens me is betrayal, abandonment, and being remembered as nothing more than a footnote in someone else’s life. Illness is honest; it tells you what it is, it doesn’t pretend to be love. But betrayal wears a mask, smiling at you even as it buries the knife deeper.
This is my truth. Illness may one day take me, but it is betrayal that has carved its mark deepest into my soul. Loneliness may be the companion of my last days, but it will not be my master. For though I may leave this world alone, I will not leave it broken. I have carried my cross, heavy as it is, and in that, I have carried the truth of what it means to love in a loveless world.
And if that is the weight I must bear, then let it be. For I would rather suffer in honesty than live in falsehood. I would rather carry this cross to the end than be fed with empty love.
And until my last breath comes, I will lift my eyes upward and say: thank You, God, for keeping me alive as long as I can live.
That, too, is reality.
Thank You, Lord
Until next time,
—Jacob M. / Awriterstip
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