Aug 25th, 2020: No Honour for the Elderly, No Future for the Young

 Wisdom is With the Aged: I'll Take That $5.00 Senior Discount ...

Now that we have passed through the stressful period when many elderly lost their lives due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. We might want to examine what happens to us as a society when it comes to caring for them. People Francis said this in March of 2019: "In a civilization in which there is no room for the elderly or where they are thrown away because they create problems, this society carries with it the virus of death. ... Where there is no honour for the elderly, there is no future for the young."

Maybe we don't know how to appreciate life experience and wisdom: As soon as an elderly gets admitted to a nursing home or a senior care centre, he or she seems to disappear. All of what she or he knows doesn't seem to matter or to be appreciated. The accounts of various elderly abused cases in Quebec tell us that no one was really paying attention and not because of the pandemic. Much wisdom has been lost, and much life experience has been diminished.

We might have considered the existence of the elderly as a burden to society. Maybe the real conspiracy about this pandemic is not about China wanting to damage us in the West but about getting rid of the elderly so that we don't have to support them any longer. Society has become so busy to take care of its elderly is the one that has lost its way in knowing how to value beauty and meaning. Maybe we have considered convenience more important than relationships and memories.

We go to the grocery store and look at the expiry date before we buy anything. It appears as if we have used the same principle when it comes to human values and worth. When I came to see my father in January in Montreal, he had a neighbor in his senior home who constantly screamed. She had dementia and didn't have that many people visiting her. She had two adult children, and they don't come to see her much. The nurse told me that she used to work as a speech pathologist. Somehow her self-worth was gone regardless of her life long contribution to the healthcare system in Quebec.

Maybe the real virus of death is more than just Covid-19 as we now discover. When we stop celebrating life, we start propagating death. Life is not with us when that happens.

Deuteronomy 5:16
"Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you."
 

Job 12: 12
"Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days."

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