The Old and the Lonely

I cannot catch a break. All I wanted was a picture of an old dog. What I got were several pictures of old dogs being left at the pound and captions of them begging not to be left behind. My fragile mind cannot take that sort of thing because I have seen people do it in real life. The rescue gets mostly cats but some dogs that have aged too much for their owners who want a new puppy. It is common for people to adopt a kitten or puppy and then return them once they are bigger.

Of course this is a terrible practice. When it comes to how we treat animals, I comment that we would never do that to a human. In this case, we do. Millions of our elderly are in nursing homes where no one comes to see them and they simply fade away to the family. Nursing homes can be terrible places like mental institutions decades ago. I applied to a few for administrative assistant and program manager. It was terrible how little people interacted with the patients and how much they were talking to each other behind the counter.

I joke with my parents that we decide what home they go to, but the idea of doing that just because they are old makes me sick. We had to put both of my grandmothers in a nursing home less than a month before they died because we did not have the resources to care for them.  It was not something we wanted to do and we came to see them whenever we could.

When people become old, fragile, and as helpless as an animal, I think that is when I care more about them. I have never been into respecting my elders just because they were old, especially if they think they can get away with something since they are old. Yet how can someone take their parents, those who have cared for them when they were helpless, turn around and abandon them at their greatest time of need? I do not have the best relationship with my parents but they did their job. No matter how they are as old people, I am going to do what I need to when they need me in their old age. Even if that means dealing with their religious beliefs and helping them find their false teeth.