Our Forgotten Elderly

Our society is geared toward youth. Being young, acting young, staying young - no one seems to want to grow old, gracefully or otherwise. My kids have asked me if I'd rather be a kid or an adult and my answer is always a resounding "Adult!" mostly because of the freedoms that adults have compared to children. Freedom to make important decisions or even unimportant ones without asking permission. Being responsible for yourself brings many headaches, but it also brings a sort of liberation that most kids haven't yet experienced.

But what about the question, "If given the chance, would you stay young forever?" The answer would appear obvious, but upon further consideration may not be. One of life's problems that we all must deal with at some point or another is the death of a loved one. If we didn't grow old and die, we would simply watch all the people we care about do so while we continued to live forever. That doesn't sound like such a great prospect to me and while I'm in no rush to pass away, eternal life here on earth might not be the prize we would assume it to be. Another reason why not could be how we currently treat those among us who have been here the longest.

Our elderly community is often our forgotten community. The media aims at the most profitable demographic: typically kids and those of working age. Sure, you see commercials about Life-Alert, Rascal Scooters and prescription drug plans, but not much else aimed at the elders in our country. Our elders are, for the most part, forgotten, cast-away people who have so much to offer if only anyone paid attention. Put yourself in the shoes of someone who's, say, 80 years old. You'd have been born in 1925, seen an entire world at war along with countless foreign wars, seen the invention and universal acceptance of television, computers, cell phones, space travel and countless other miracles of the modern-day world. Yet no one wants to talk to you about any of it. It's likely that you have experienced the problems that most people battle through in their day-to-day existence and have volumes of stored wisdom to share, but no one cares. Nearly everyone is younger than you, but you are treated like a child, as if you know nothing and have nothing to contribute. No one takes you seriously, if they hear you at all and you are not likely to be visited very often by family members, though you should be treated as the head of the family, since you are the oldest member.

On top of all this, soon you will no longer be here. Whether you believe that you will live eternally on another dimensional plane, or you feel that life simply ends like the snuffing of a candle, the fact remains: all you know and all you are will soon cease to be here on Earth. At that point someone else will become the oldest member of the family and it will be too late for anyone to get to know who you really are.

I have a point, and it's not just to depress you. We need to take stock of what's important to us and our elders should be very important. The wealth of knowledge alone should be enough to get you down to the nursing home to visit Great-Aunt Edna this weekend, but don't do it just because it's the right thing to do. Do it because someday you'll BE Great-Aunt Edna and you'll wish someone would stop by and treat you like the person you still feel you are.