I talk to a lot of old people. That’s because I’m one of them and we tend to find each other—sometimes because we need each other. Too many old people feel lonely too much of the time and try not to with each other. It doesn’t always work well, though.
Mind you, not all old people have this experience. Some are still important members of their family, like it was a couple of generations ago. They have children who love, respect, and honor them—who are deeply aware and appreciative of what their parents did for them—have given them, even endured for them. They are the most fortunate.
But for far too many, their story is a sad one. You see, they are not as vital as they once were yet they are, after all, still alive. It is most certainly a different kind of “aliveness” though.
For many, their poor health adds heavily to their burden. Body, soul, and heart hurt all at once. Some wonder every day why they are still here; for what purpose, they ask. They are left with distant memories, equivocal thoughts, and unanswerable questions. They feel like they have spent most of their life-time chips yet they don’t seem to have much of value to show for it.
For some, their children pay little to no attention to them. They ask: Have I wasted my life? What have I done with all those years? I must have failed miserably as a parent; just look at how indifferent my children are toward me. It is as though all of those long, hard years meant nothing. How grotesquely strange and sad it is for them. I know these things because they tell me.
An old adage, which was well known to them when they were children, is now just one more source of pain. Not very long ago it was a foundational principal of all mature civil cultures, yet now it has become a relic in its time. The adage is: “Your children bring you comfort and joy in your old age.” They ask, “Really?”
America is not a good place to be old. Culturally, we are like a randomly assembled mosaic—discordant and unsettling when viewed. Ah, what is this strange piece? Oh, I don’t feel well when I look at it.
Then too, depending on our ethnic juxtaposition and our core nature, some of us are more alive than others. Latin families seem to practice traditional family values and mores. And, generally speaking, women do better than men. I haven’t read any studies on this, but a few ideas come to mind. First, if a man has spent the bulk of his life in the workplace with a well-defined purpose, he is apt to be rather lost and at sea without a rudder when he retires.
We are called “senior citizens.” Arriving at this place was a subtle process. It creeps up on you and for some time after you arrive you still don’t quite get it. It takes awhile to acknowledge that you are actually old—that others have already moved you into that category and that it is time for you to acknowledge the same. I’m old, you say to yourself. Damn! When did that happen?
Of course there are some who define “old” differently. They say things like, “I’ve never felt better in my entire life.” And who am I to argue with them? Though I do wonder how they must have felt when they were young.
America is for young people—that is unless, as I said, you are a part of certain ethnic groups that still honor their elders or you are simply fortunate enough to have attentive, caring children. But in America we honor and promote youth and all that attaches. Notwithstanding the aforementioned pockets of old-school ethnic cultures and some religiously orientated families where the elderly are still held in high esteem, the cultural ethos of America oozes with the superficiality of youth worship and the cult of celebrity. If not ignored entirely, young people may occasionally acknowledge old people at a distance. On certain holidays or birthdays they may dispassionately deign to invite their parents into their homes as a superficial, routine duty—yet not as revered elders.
I knew a fellow old guy with ten kids whose wife had died years earlier. He was 87 and he told me that he rarely heard from any of his children. Of course I don’t know what kind of a father he was but I do know that he was a very sad old man. He died about a year ago of cancer.
And so it goes …