yesterday a man talked to me: words vs. loneliness and mortality

no, he did't talk, he run with words, a grey and silver haired tall and sad man,
an incessant run of them, unpunctuated,
speaking as if never anyone listened to him before, which i easily believe.
unfortunately i did, listen,  and it was tiresome.
next to his wife standing on crutches, he mentioned three times:
which man would stay with such a wife..
then again half crying whilst re-narrating the burial of his father,
throwing all in one pot, childhood, parents, morals, marriage and duty,
internet, his former work as a baker, his far away and estranged 6 siblings,
rambling on and on about how clever he cares for quality of life at his age,
for me depending on what and who defines quality, unhappy as he was at root.
Then he was going on about his two artificial hips
and why we shouldn't pay money for nothing to refugees, on politics
and on the right to be free from suffering..more or less,
as he had been paying taxes and insurance all his life.
He continued with adversity to any medication just looking at it the same way as at
industrial food. i politely told him that e.g. diabetes or coronary heart disease
have side-effects just the same, and that i see medication as balancing one
evil against the other, if used wisely to be of possible benefit.
and though he had experienced differently, artificial joints, surgery on stomach,
he went on to behave as if a human cannot be wounded but by eating the wrong food
and taking medication and having surgery done to oneself.
Mortality appears difficult to look at when you see yourself in the mirror.
No, he kept on saying he smiles each morning at himself in the bathroom.
i guess he just bares his teeth ....just not but near growling.
a flood of words and mixed up context, an attack on the listener.

i managed to stay polite and patient but asked him to imagine once to live in a poor country
and then compare his status to the one he would have had there as a non-walking cripple,
then i asked him if he really believed what he said.
he didn't listen, of course he didn't.

a relief when he left..

ps: my 90 years old mother sitting next to me put her head to the side
and did what i learned from her:
she just looked as if she was listening
when she had long ago stopped,
i grinned at her and she reacted ever so slightly:
the best moment.