Ah, Aging!

Ah, Aging .... some may disagree, but I think it beats the alternative!

Family and friends gone long before they even had a chance to see wrinkles or gray hair!

Our society focuses on youth and material things, two things that don't last!

Many younger people love antiques, but avoid older people.

Many younger people love to learn about their ancestors, you know, the dead ones.

They don't care to hear their parents' or grandparents' personal stories, but will surf online digging

for relatives' long gone history.

We hear about this one's mother, father, grandparents, aunts, uncles sick, dying, dead. Isn't it sad.

An old person is sick, well, they had a good life, one dies, they had a long life.

We warehouse those who are fragile, not themselves anymore, chronically ill. They had a good life.

Of course, there are cases where an elderly person has to be in a place where professionals know how to care for them. Isn't it unfortunate that those places have no set standards, no real regulations. It's a convinience, you know, they're behind closed doors. We don't know about what we can't see.

Could it be we are afraid? Looking at elderly people, we see our own future. They have been where we are and they are where we are going.

When I was a kid, my mother's father died. She was an only child, even though she was raising six kids, her mother came to live with us. My grandma had been sick for years, I am know she had Parkinson's. There was no hesitation, no question about her living with us.

So many things were different in the 1960's and 1970's ... seems to me, family is family. Is it priorities?

It's not for me to decide, but it's food for thought ... if we are here long enough, we all age. Many of us will end up in one of those warehouses.

Maybe people should begin thinking about what our society can do to change this, before it happens to us?

How about reaching out to an older person? A simple phone call ... a text...what would be better, a letter, card. How about a visit?

Older people have lives they want to live. They appreciate being thougt about, how much does it take to let them know?

One day you could be one of those older people, how much would it mean to you? 

By Marjorie Farrington July 5, 2021