Who Is The Sick Person Who Might Be Most Cheered By My Call? Poem by Shalom Freedman

I look at the list of phone numbers
Who is the sick person who might be most cheered by my call?
The polymath construction engineer from the hospital who thought he knew more than all the doctors and held conversations in Polish, Russian, Hebrew and English?
The truckdriver gabbai who I was caregiver for for half a year
And who I seemed to be such good friends with until I became sick
And was forgotten by?
The transplanted convert doctor with pancreatic cancer and the wife with Alzheimers
Who last seen was a shadow of his former self?

And why in my arrogance and loneliness
Do I think they will be helped by hearing my voice?
Is it only because I am lonely myself
And yesterday was somewhat cheered by someone from our Shul
Calling us after two months absence?
Because I know it is not joy to be forgotten and ignored and not mentioned
And treated as if I were too old and too irrelevant to ever matter again?