By Georgie Afton, Director of Visiting Companions & Advocacy
Every day, I knock on ordinary doors and enter extraordinary lives. Sometimes, before the door opens, the low throb or loud blare of a television comes through the walls, filling the quiet with the sound of the world out there. I knock again, a voice calls, “Come in,” the latch clicks, and the door opens.
“In the kitchen,” comes the voice, and I follow the words down the hallway lined with photographs — a life mapped in silver frames, tilting slightly as if listening too. And then, sitting across from another human being, I’m reminded that every face maps a history, and every silence holds a story waiting for company.
I listen to:
- The man who has weathered more than a dozen strokes and still reaches for his guitar, the chords keeping rhythm with stories of building a home with his wife and the quiet joy of fatherhood.
- The woman who lost two children to suicide decades ago, who carries her grief like breath, and still meets the world with grace and light.
- The ninety-four-year-old who tells her children in their sixties, “Go. See. Do.” — and who laughs about how fast ostriches run and the presidential libraries she’s yet to check off her list.
- The man who misses his wife of sixty-two years worries about where his 65-year-old nonverbal son will live next, and whose neighbors bring supper each evening.
- The woman who says, “I just can’t get hold of this clutter,” and worries no one will come.
Each visit reminds me that connection doesn’t erase hardship — but it changes its shape. Loneliness softens when it has company. The air feels different when someone is listening.
Through Friends & Co’s Visiting Companions program, I’m reminded daily that friendship is a quiet, radical act — two people sitting together, seeing and being seen. Belonging begins with one knock, one step through an ordinary door, one conversation, one extraordinary person at a time.
