Whatever a person is going through, it is real to them. Though, on the whole, pitying anyone for their condition in life doesn't help.
"May your suffering be blessed, which gave the timid fool pity's highest power and purest knowledge's might!" Wagner, Parsifal
Oops! Forgot about Parsifal but in that case I think it was because he dispelled the illusion of suffering that it worked, that pity had any effect.
So since all suffering is imagined by the person who is suffering, in the case of Amfortas because of the unconscious guilt he felt when he fell short of his own ideals of what a Grail Knight should be, Ed McMahon's suffering is just as real to him as what anyone one else may believe they are suffering, whether they are sick or starving or lonely.
A house/home is a physical extension of our bodies and when our house is threatened we feel our body is threatened so since I still live under the illusion that I am a body (a very persistent illusion, I am sure most would agree), my home is very important to me and I can empathize with Ed and his wife, no matter what her age is, are going through although I don't pity them.