The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine

Living Alone

Roland C. Clement

I married late and enjoyed my bachelorhood, mostly exploring the natural world. I then enjoyed fifty years of marriage to an energetic, receptive, interesting woman. We had three children, now leading busy lives of their own around the world. They provided three grandchildren, whom I enjoy but only occasionally see.

I am a bachelor again, almost ninety, healthy, busy with abundant interests, looking ahead even as I savor my past. But I miss something. People say, you miss your wife, but that’s not it. She suffered a decadal decline, I was a good caregiver, that is done.

My doctor knew but was little help. He said, “Remember that you will continue to need someone to hug.” Just kin? Modern Society, drunk on money and mere things says, “Act your age!”

As an old-fashioned (organismal!) biologist, I know that the sciences have learned that we social simians need to touch and be touched. This may be a social keystone.

We are learning to provide this intimacy for children. When the sexual decades overwhelm us, sex imposes an overdrive on intimacy. This was probably evolutionarily necessary because, compared to so many other species, we are weaklings who once persisted only by sheer reproductive success. This is what Darwin called “fitness.”

We learned to compensate, and now dominate the Earth. But now that reproduction is almost counterproductive, we have abandoned the growing and aging population of adults to their own devices. Yet, a need for intimacy remains basic.

This is the dilemma of living alone later in life. I am learning, slowly, that touching—whether with my fingers or my lips—is almost sacramental, a gift and a promise. We need to institutionalize that awareness. A first step may be for Medicine to recognize the continuing need for intimacy as a Principle of Human Health.

Published: March 14, 2002