A lonely elderly man has gone viral after pleading for someone to talk to after his wife had passed away and he has been left with no friends or family.
88-year-old Tony Williams was devastated by the loss of his 77-year-old wife, Jo, whom he called his soul mate, after the elderly lady passed away from pancreatic cancer.
Following the heartbreaking loss, Williams pleaded for friends in a tear-jerking poster he exhibited at his home in the UK.
“I have lost Jo. My lovely wife and soul mate. I have no friends or family. No one to talk to. I find the unremitting silence 24 hours a day unbearable torture. Can no one help me?” the sign read.
Fortunately, kind people soon took notice of the tear-jerking message and shared it across social media in hopes of getting the senior man some new friends.
Soon enough, Mr. Williams was flooded with thousands of emails and phone calls from people from all over the world.
As the senior explained, he was first called by Dame Esther Rantzen, a TV personality whom he allegedly had a “lovely conversation” with.
“She was one of those people who really listen, which is a dying art these days. We spoke for about 20 minutes and she said she’d call me back in a week or two,” Williams said.
After his initial conversation, the senior was reportedly inundated with kind messages and phone calls from strangers.
“I answered about 100 calls and my answering machine was full with 30 messages. And I had thousands and thousands of emails. People contacted me from all over the world: the United States, Canada, Australia, the Middle East, Spain, Iceland,” Williams explained.
“A lot of people said they knew how I felt because they had been bereaved themselves. I had a lovely long conversation with a lady from Cairo who travels to Britain on business.
“One woman, Margaret, called me from Florida and invited me to fly over to stay with her. She said she’d pick me up at the airport and show me round the State.
“The loveliest gesture probably came from a teacher at the primary school down the road, who said if I’d mind if the children all wrote me letters.”
As the pensioner added, he was overwhelmed by the response he received and he now wants to “start a campaign to reach people in similar positions.”
He also suggested that his poster is now ready to be removed. “I’m considering taking it down this weekend. It’s overkill now. Mission accomplished,” the 88-year-old concluded.
Replaced!