Be Kind To Those Who Are Hurting

While traveling the social media highway, I encountered many ideas, assumptions, and attitudes about older people, and few of them were positive.

The other day, I was disheartened by disrespectful comments directed at an entertainer in his nineties. This remarkable individual stood on stage, microphone in hand, bravely singing the familiar lyrics to a song I’ve enjoyed for many decades. His resilience and determination were truly inspiring.
The comments below the video were primarily vile, along with the emojis that showed nausea and its results. I see the same comments about anything related to older people in love, older people in sports, or older people simply existing.

Disparaging remarks such as “Give it up” and “Your time has passed” are milder. The others range from “Ugh! That sounds terrible” or “Does your diaper need changing?” and do not let it be a post of someone’s parent or grandparent that the person posting thought might be educational for others going through the whole Dementia/Alzheimer’s journey. There are remarks like, “Just put them in a facility” or “They are aware of what they are doing; they’re just mean and hateful,”  and my heart sinks.

What has happened to our world’s compassion? How have we come to resent those who have paved the way for us? This distressing situation calls for more empathy and understanding. This is one of the reasons I am volunteering to advocate for seniors in every way possible. My current assignment not only makes me feel good, but it is one that I believe is a God assignment each week.

I connect via phone with many lonely seniors in their houses, apartments, and senior living facilities. Many have been abandoned by their families, while others have no family left alive. Though some have various interests and outside connections, it is the ‘coming in’ to those lonely places with only the television, a pet, or a phone call to look forward to. The impact of these conversations is profound, and I see the difference it makes in their lives.

The organization I volunteer for is Friends and Company, a non-profit dedicated to providing companionship and support to seniors. The part I do weekly via phone is called Coffee Talk. I work that little volunteer spot with six others who answer phones from 8 a.m. to noon. In that small space, we encounter almost every version of ‘being older’ and what it means.

Many seniors are constantly “up,” while others, like two women I encountered last week, are steeped in despair. One of these women repeatedly expressed the desire to die due to recently losing her husband. These conversations allow those who seldom get attention to have the floor to “speak” with little interruption and no one completing their sentences or reminding them that they have “told that story before.”  This woman was steeped in her grief, had been yelled at by her son for being so “dramatic,” and kept telling me that she was eighty-one as if that were her personal death knell.

As with all of my “clients,” I waited patiently for her to tell her story, but all the while, I was asking God, “What to say?” as in, “How can I help her when one of the ways I know to help is to insert experience with grief?” I suggested that she seek help from her church if she has one. When I asked if I might pray for her, she tearfully snuffled, “Yes, please, but I am Catholic.” I assured her that there was no separate God for each of us. I asked God how and what to pray for us, and the words came quickly. She thanked me for what she called, A beautiful prayer.”

As in any work in the “helping” field, this work requires that one be prepared to hear all kinds of stories: happy, sad, hopeful, and those whose hope needs polishing up and hopefully restored. The work also goes both ways. It brings me joy, even on my most physically and emotionally challenging days, and makes me thankful that I can help someone along the way.

No, seniors are not usually mean or spiteful. There are so many reasons that older people appear to be that way. We are moving through a world that holds us in contempt because we have aged, a world that is angry that we do not or cannot keep up with much of the technology, and a world where some of us, who move a little slower, are mocked and made to feel unwelcome.

I am praying for those who believe they will always be twenty-one and in good physical and mental shape as long as they live.  I am thankful for my life—aches and pains included—every single day.