Pope Francis Tweet: “No elderly person should be like an ‘exile’ in our families. The elderly are a treasure for our society.” January 11, 2014
Commentary by Jonathan Matthes
As a group, we Americans don’t like old people.
But why?
Some cultures practically adore the elderly. Many American Indian tribes look up to their elders. Likewise, some eastern societies (that’s Asia) revere their elderly.
Not here, though, not in the good-ole U. S. of A. Sure, we’ll applaud a Korean War vet on the Fourth of July; but if we get stuck behind him driving 15 miles-an-hour under the speed limit on I-465, we shout something other than praise. I’m sure Aunt Ethel is sweet and a lovely lady, but God help me if she spends another 20 seconds trying to find that missing nickel in her coin purse. She’s just going to write a check anyway!
During these moments, the respect we occasionally display to our elders evaporates. Why? Maybe it has something to do with our lust for the New.
We certainly love change, don’t we? We could have a perfectly good and efficient (insert anything here: program, movie, law, style, four-time MVP quarterback), but when it becomes dated, old or scuffed, we rush to the glittering New, which likely won’t be any better. But who cares, it’s new!
It’s one thing to apply this philosophy to our toaster or car. But we do it to human beings, to our grandparents and parents. We do it to people.
They get sick and we write them off. They can’t care for themselves and we call a nursing home. They need help and we exile them. Granted, we often do need professional help; if we make these choices with the elderly’s best interests in mind, then no worries. But if our motive is to send them away to avoid interrupting our comfortable lifestyle, then shame on us. We’ve failed. They deserve to be listened to, not shunned. They deserve our love, not our contempt. They deserve an embrace, not an exile.
It can be painful to watch them age and become feeble. I know how frustrating it can be. Before my Grandma Florence died, her short-term memory was almost gone. She once asked me what my shoe size was 18 times in a 10-minute car ride; I’m not exaggerating. I counted. It was very frustrating.
But if we can look past the frustrations and aged exterior, we can find an encyclopedia on life. Maybe we’d make fewer mistakes if we just consulted them every once in a while. Maybe we could glean some wisdom from them. Let’s admit it, we all can do better at that.