The Elderly
Dr. Michel E. Abs
Secretary General of the Middle East Council of Churches
They sit on their chair, holding their cane, with their eyes fixed on the horizon, looking at it with a look of reproach and anticipation.
They are waiting for a son, a grandson, a brother, or someone who will ask about them, about their condition and their fate.
They recall days gone by and reflect on the suffering they made them endure and the lessons they taught them. Sometimes they are happy and sometimes sad.
"Old age is a crossing", thus goes the popular saying in Lebanon. And as the French saying goes, “If the youth knew, and if old age is able.”
The graying of their hair and their wrinkled skin tell you of the time that they have endured. Their erratic gaze tells you something about their suffering.
They are the most vulnerable group in society, as they have neither power nor promise of restoring past glory. They just resort to memories.
They are the category of people that modern society feels uneasy concerning the high cost of caring for them and maintaining them is.
Although children as a social category is the other vulnerable social group, nevertheless it is a promising category in terms of productivity. As for the elderly, they are considered by modern society as the high-cost category, its members are on the decline, and therefore caring for them is not cost-effective as there is no hope of recovering whatever is spent on their care and maintenance by institutions and governments alike.
Is this not an ingrate logic?
It is these flabby bodies and these trembling hands that took care of us when we were young.
It is these weak physical structures that we resort to when we are sad or afraid.
It is these quavering voices who taught us, fortified us with admonitions, and lifted up our spirits whenever we needed that.
It was these lost eyes that gave us tenderness, kindness, and courage when our sprouts were soft.
We cannot, therefore, but treat them in the finest ways and address them with the sweetest words.
In our popular culture, they say that the souls of the elderly are very fragile, and they grieve over any behavior that hurts them.
This is self-evident, as they no longer have time to heal from any hurt that is inflicted on them.
Many do not understand this, so we find that there is mistreatment of the elderly, without respect neither for their white hair, a sign of time, nor for their tired body as it is exhausted by relentless giving.
On the page of the United Nations, which designated the fifteenth of June as the World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, we note shocking facts:
About 17% of those over the age of 60 who live with their families are exposed to various forms of abuse, and elder abuse is high in nursing homes and long-term care facilities; this phenomenon has increased during the Covid 19 pandemic. It is worth noting that such treatment can lead to serious physical injury as well long-term psychological consequences.
The worrying thing is the expected demographic shifts, as the number of the world’s population aged over 60 will increase, from 900 million in 2015 to about 2 billion in 2050. Such shifts will inevitably lead to an escalation of the phenomenon of elder abuse as many countries show rapidly aging populations.
We do not need to stress and focus on the role played by the Church of Christ in embracing the elderly and in various forms of services, from ordinary reception homes to centers for chronic diseases and centers for the care of the disabled elderly.
We have to stop and ask ourselves that aside set ups for the treatment of a chronic illness that can constitute a physical disability, why do we need nursing homes?
Is the inevitable answer that it because of the fact that children are no longer able to tolerate their parents as they feel that their presence with them affects their well-being? Is it because the elderly have become a burden on the lives of their children, whereas they are the ones that gave life to them?
Outside the framework of diseases that glue the elderly into a wheelchair and therefore make them need specialized medical care, nursing homes are an affront to our very humanity.
The most heinous thing that can be done to an elderly person is to deprive him from the environment in which s/he spent their life.
You find them torn from homes where they lived for decades carrying with them some items that have no value except for them in their own memories.
This could be termed as person-abuse, but we find it difficult to fight against because of the severity of the weakness from which our values and most importantly our love suffer.