How lonely will they feel in their old age?
My friend Doug wrote a great post called All the Lonely People, Where Do They All Come From? [Update: the broken link is fixed now--sorry about that!] He paints a picture of a lonely gentleman he and his son met on Christmas Day, who reminisced about his own son who has grown up and out of contact.
It's a poignant and thought-provoking post, raising questions about how we relate to our own close and extended family.
It's worth a read.
I'm reminded of the story of the man who decides to cast out his elderly, feeble father because it's too much expense and trouble to care for him. The father requests that he at least be given one of the horse blankets to keep warm.
When the man sends his own son to get the blanket for his grandfather, the boy rips it in half before giving one piece to his grandfather. The grandfather complains to his son, who berates the boy.
The boy says, "I was keeping the other half to give to you when I cast you out in the cold, Father."
That changes everything.
It's a poignant and thought-provoking post, raising questions about how we relate to our own close and extended family.
It's worth a read.
I'm reminded of the story of the man who decides to cast out his elderly, feeble father because it's too much expense and trouble to care for him. The father requests that he at least be given one of the horse blankets to keep warm.
When the man sends his own son to get the blanket for his grandfather, the boy rips it in half before giving one piece to his grandfather. The grandfather complains to his son, who berates the boy.
The boy says, "I was keeping the other half to give to you when I cast you out in the cold, Father."
That changes everything.
Copyright 2009. All rights reserved.
Posted by purple_kangaroo at 11:15 AM[Permanent link]
3 Comments:
Not to be a downer, but when I see older people who are alone, but have children I wonder if they are like my grandfather; simply a mean old man who lived his life selfishly and now gets back what he put it into his family.
That was actually one of the points Doug was pondering in his post--is it their own fault they're lonely (which it often is) and in light of that, what should our course of action be?
I just read the article and agree with many of his points. I think an outsider could befriend a lonely, elderly person because there is no history or involvement.
I am one of three children/grandchildren out of 12 who speaks to my grandfather and acknowledges him on holidays. I do it to help out my mother and because it is easier since I am a generation removed from the main source of problems, but it is still very difficult. If he were my father, I do not know that I could do anything for/with him. However, friends, distant relatives, etc have no trouble being friendly to him.
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