To Whom It May Concern

Respect Your Elders

Well, last week I get a phone call from my mother, and she is talking about whatever, the weather, or shopping, something not all too important or I would likely remember it now. Then at about where the end of the phone call would be, she does this:

"Oh, you heard about Grandma right?"

"No, what's up?"

"She's up in the hospital, she has breast cancer"

At this point I was a little annoyed with my mother, seeing how she stated it as though she were going to say "Hey, Grandma bought a car" or "Grandma is going on a tropical cruise", rather than it being bad news. I was really stunned.

My grandmother is the hardest working person I have ever known. From pretty much the day she was married till she was around 70 years old, she was in the dairy barn, milking cows, morning and night, years and years, hardly ever taking a day off. While growing up I helped out a lot, and if there were a time where I would fall down, hit my knee, slam my hand, she would send me to the house, tell me to take a break, she would continue to do it on her own, I could take my time.

But if she ever got hurt, it didn't matter how badly, she would not leave that barn. I swear sometimes if her legs would have gotten cut off she would have just stayed there, working diligently, that's just the type of person she was. I don't know if she felt no pain, or just learned to deal with it, but like I said, she's the hardest working person that I have ever known.

I went yesterday to see her at the hospital, and when I got there she was the only one in the room, my cousin had been to see her earlier in the day, and my sister was going to be coming up to pick her up later on. She was sitting on the edge of the bed looking contemplative, no television was on, no magazines opened to read. When she saw me come in she smiled, "Oh my, I didn't expect to see you?" Of course I had to ask her what that was supposed to mean, because there is no way that I would NOT come to see her if she were sick or injured, to which she replied "Ah, I'm doing just fine, I'm all ready to go home."

I sat down and we started to talk, it's always funny how my grandmother brings up the weather, and how hot/cold/stormy/windy/rainy/dry it's going to be. She tends to be a pessimist about such things, but then, with the weather being what it is in Nebraska, she has good reason to be. But in all things related to the farm and family, she is always supportive. She asked how belly is doing, and wondered about her great grandchild on the way. I think she's excited about the opportunity of having one that she can actually see more than once maybe every 3 years or so, that's one of the big reasons I want to live closer to home, because your family is important.

I think one of the more interesting aspects about my grandmother is that she never cares to focus on her own situation, instead she wants to know how you are, and if there is anything she can do to help. She has been that way her whole life, she sacrifices anything personal for the good of those she loves. I think about some of the foolish things I have done in my life, and how I would get a stern look and maybe a sentence or two about responsibility, but it was always followed by a cold glass of milk, some cookies, and discussion about happier events.

After about an hour or so the nurses said they needed to prepare my grandmother to get ready to go home. She joked with them about how she would see them again tomorrow, for chemotherapy. They had to go so far as to remove her lymph nodes but were hopeful with the chemo that they could eradicate the rest of the cancer without too much of a problem. I was amazed that she was able to make jokes about something like that, but then that's how Grandma is, never one to focus on the bad in a situation too much, always wanting to move on to better topics.

She'll have to go up every day for chemotherapy, not sure how many days she'll have to do it. Probably until they decide that they've gotten the rest of the disease. I certainly hope we find a cure for cancer soon. You have people around the world screaming about HIV/AIDS but with all due respect to the seriousness of that particular disease, it IS preventable with simple measures. Cancer is not, and cancer affects far and away more people than HIV, I get irritated with the amount of money politicians talk about throwing at HIV, and it's not that it's a bad thing, but I believe that money could be spent better finding a cure for cancer. Supposedly we are close, and that's good.

I guess I get frustrated by a variety of things when I think about how our society deals with their elders. Is it any wonder why senior citizens fight to keep their licenses long beyond the safe point for many of them to be driving? Most of the middle aged and younger Americans have no desire to care for them, they act as though it's such a burden to give their parents a ride to the doctor, to take them shopping for food, or to even go over and visit them, just to see how they are doing. And if that's not bad enough, it's utterly appalling just how poorly the government legislates care for seniors, it's as though they feel it's just a bunch of people who should be put someone and then wait for them to die. Of course seniors want independence, who else is going to take care of them?

This is something I strongly believe in, not only because of what I see, but lets face it, we all have a very personal stake in this particular topic. You are either going to die young, or you are going to get old someday and have to deal with the very problems I've mentioned above. Even putting money away for yourself so that you have a nice nest egg doesn't always help, there are greedy children who declare their parent(s) incompetent for no other reason than to keep them from spending their hard earned money, just so they can get ahold of an inheritance when 'mom and dad finally kick the bucket'.

I don't mean to condemn everyone with broad statements, because I like to believe that the majority of Americans do care for their elders, it's just that our government is doing very little to make the quality of life for the older generations anything that you could call respectful. Our lawmakers in Washington are going to be older someday, I guess though that when you have thousands of dollars a month coming to you as part of a self promoted pension plan, then you don't have many of the same concerns that Joe Smith the life long auto worker, or Jane Williams the career waitress have to worry about. For people like them, social security doesn't really do everything it should and they live month to month hoping to have enough to survive, especially if they have no help from relatives to get them by.

Other countries do a lot more to support their elderly. I'm not even saying that we have to have our parents live with us at an older age, but there is no reason anyone over the age of 65 should have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, or how they are going to pay for their medication, who will take them to their doctor's appointments, or even if they can afford their own funeral. I certainly hope this situation changes at some point. We need to have more respect for our elders, it's likely going to be you and I having the same problems someday if something doesn't change.