The Fifth Wheel

Her husband died one year ago tomorrow. She says she still looks up from her thoughts to the chair near the door, thinking he’ll be sitting there, ready to respond. She listens to his voice on the answering machine just to be with him for an instant.

I asked her how it feels—to be without him. She indirectly answered my question, most likely with what she feels most strongly this moment.

“It’s like being a fifth wagon wheel,” she said. Her life used to be busy. Her children demanded her time and attention. Her husband needed her. Her vision, hearing, and physical strength were all in tact—once upon a time. Now, she said, she can’t do much. The bustle has been filled with emptiness and quiet. Her children are all grown up and have their own lives and their children to stay busy with.

A fifth wheel is unnecessary until something happens to interrupt the function of the other four.

I can imagine countless fifth wheels out there, waiting or thinking of ways to cause an interruption. Most family members or friends shrug it off with frustration, assuming he or she is old and crotchety—an extreme form of their younger selves. But really, it may be a loneliness so deep that it is indescribable any other way. Maybe someday our society will come up with a better solution to this end-of-life loneliness, this time when people are dealt with a universal slowness to life during which everyone else seems too busy to join them.