The night my husband Daniel was rushed into the hospital after a serious car accident, everything else in my life faded into the background. The world narrowed to harsh fluorescent lights, the sterile smell of antiseptic, and the relentless beeping of machines that reminded me every second how fragile life really was. Daniel had been driving home from work when another car ran a red light and struck him from the side. The doctors told me he was lucky to be alive, but “lucky” didn’t feel like the right word as I watched him lie motionless, tubes and wires attached to his body.

It was during those long, exhausting days that I noticed the elderly woman in the bed next to Daniel’s. Her name was Margaret. She looked to be in her late seventies, small and fragile, with silver hair she always kept neatly braided despite her condition. What struck me most was not her age or her illness, but the emptiness around her. No visitors ever came. No flowers arrived. No one pulled up a chair to sit at her bedside.