“When I look back I see, no one waiting there for me…..”
Solitude- a phase in a person’s life or sometimes- his whole life. What does a person do to deserve eternal solitude, to be cut off from the ones they love? The answer is nothing. No one deserves to be alone.
So as a happy person with many loved ones around you, reading this article is probably just a way to pass your time or toss aside when you are bored. But stop- and spare a thought for our country’s past which is slowly decaying in old age homes. As Richard Gavin and Robert Burger wrote in “WHERE THEY GO TO DIE: THE TRAGEDY OF AMERICA’S AGED”, old age homes are “half way houses between society and cemetery”
It is estimated that around 90% of the people living in old age homes are single or widowed. Old age homes therefore provide them with a relief from their lonely lives and they get to spend the last few days of their lives with people they have things in common with. Though isolating your elders and putting them in a completely new environment at the last phase in their life is cruel but it could be justified in some extreme circumstances. For EG: If a woman is diagnosed with a disease which requires 24 hour medical assistance what is one supposed to do? Her young kids cant be expected to leave their jobs to look after her. The salary of that job probably pays for the woman’s medical expenses. In this case the son/daughter can put their mother in an old age home with appropriate medical facilities.
This is not my personal opinion. According to me sending elders to old age homes is never justified. I am not going to waste your time and mine by repeating the cliché “They gave birth to you etc” but all I can say is that, its because of your elders that you are where you are in life. If you cant respect them then that is exactly how you ought to be treated in your old age.
