Almost every day we run into elderly people a lot of them with a very sour disposition. I was thinking about that and would like very much to share those thoughts with you. I know perfectly well this is not a perfect world and these thoughts do not apply to everyone or every situation. Nonetheless, I hope as it has me, they will also give you something to think about. When a man and woman bring a child into this world their lives change in almost every possible aspect. Even before the child’s birth, they are making huge plans and many changes in their lives and lifestyles. They will be doing just that for almost all the rest of their lives. Most parents will do without so that their children will have. They will clean up many messes, repair or replace many broken things, and accept the loss of those things that cannot be replaced. Some parents go hungry so that their children will have food. They work hard to make sure their children have good medical care, dental care, and a good education. When they are teens if they are able, they help them acquire their first vehicle and pay for their traffic violations. Some teens get into trouble with the law and parents pay the blunt for that too. Some teens go to college and parents that are able will pay for that also. None of the debts are ever paid back, parents do not expect them to be. It is all part of the choice we made by bringing our children into this world we live in. As our children become young adults, we help them still with projects around their homes, repairs on their vehicles, and keeping or helping with their children, and our grandchildren. As parents, we spend nearly every waking moment of our lives with our children and grandchildren on our minds and in our hearts. We are there at the drop of a hat if possible if we are able. If we are able that is when everything takes a turn for the worst. At some point in our lives, father time takes its toll on us all. Our health deteriorates, our motor skills weaken and eventually, we struggle to do the once-simple things like bathing, using the toilet, getting dressed, and even feeding ourselves. The circle of life is nearly complete. All that we used to do for our children now needs to be done for us. Of course, it is embarrassing as a mother to have your son help give you a bath, use the toilet, and get dressed. Or as a father ask our daughter these things, right? Why? Because we are taught it is wrong and ugly? Yet somehow it is acceptable for a strange woman to assist your father with these things, or a strange man to assist your mother with these things. Why is that ok? Or is it in all reality you do not want to be burdened with these tasks? So the people who brought us into this world spent their entire lives helping us find our own place in life and are now put into a home to be taken care of by some strangers who may or may not treat them with love and kindness, may or may not show them respect and respect their privacy. They are dressed in diapers, so the aides do not have to constantly help them to the toilet, they encourage them to soil the diapers instead. The opposite of what they taught their children. They are taken to a shower once or twice a week and placed in a harness to make it easier for the aide to wash them down and dress them. Of course, that is not nearly as humiliating as having the child you brought into this world nude, and perhaps even bathed with until a certain age bathes you in the privacy of your own home or perhaps theirs. The food you hated in the school cafeteria growing up, tasted like a gourmet meal compared to the bland allegedly healthy food served in a nursing home that the elderly have no choice but to eat. They can not run down the road for a cheeseburger or look in the cabinet for something they like. Most share a room with an elderly stranger and one television between them. You rarely ever get to watch your favorite programs; you can not rest when they have visitors from all the talking and activity of grandchildren. Everything about your life has changed again, only now you are not excited at all. You are sad, hurt, and angry. You do not want to be a burden to your children, yet you do not want to live the last days of your life in this home of thrown-away old people. Many live short lives once they are placed in a nursing home. They are overcome with depression, humility, loneliness, and pain; they simply give up on life. Please, think strongly about putting your parents into a nursing home, is it unavoidable? If your parents are no longer alive, maybe you can find the time to visit a nursing home and cheer up a very lonely old person. Maybe, just maybe you will give them a reason to live.
Simply my Thoughts
Dean Butler
