Value we place on our older people has diminished
IN a letter to his history teacher in 1901, 22-year-old Albert Einstein wrote: "Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth."
Hard to define, easier to describe, respect is a man removing his hat, a child saying thank you, a pupil addressing his teacher as Mr. or Ms. We know respect when we see it, writes Jemima Burke.
When directed against older people in our society, the crime of disrespect is always most egregious. Perhaps committed more often than we notice, disregard of the elderly is an unmistakeable signal of moral decay, selfishness and cold-bloodedness.
Sadly, this October, the Irish Examiner reported that a third inquest in a week heard how an elderly person lay dead in their homes for some time before their body was discovered.
The deceased were described alternately as having 'fallen through the cracks of society' and having been 'enveloped in a cloak of anonymity'.
Speaking to The Connaught Telegraph, Castlebar Councillor Michael Kilcoyne said he believes that 'the value placed on older people has diminished in our society'.
"These are the people who built our society," he added. "Not all of them were geniuses, but they brought us to where we are today. They worked the land to pass on to the next generation. They made medical discoveries and invented everything from the motorcar to the airplane. Life today is what it is because of those gone before."
While stressing the fact that many young people in our society are 'shining examples of the way to look after older people', Kilcoyne points to dangerous emerging attitudes where the elderly are viewed as 'a burden' on society due to being 'no longer productive and not 'contributing to the nett worth of the economy'.
According to Kilcoyne, the role of government policies cannot be underestimated: "Take an elderly couple on a farm whose child wants to build a house next to them. In many cases the son or daughter cannot get planning permission because of government policy. This is policy being made by people who do not take society and community into account. These situations will have serious repercussions because elderly people are left on their own, maybe five or six miles out in the country.
"I think we pay a lot of lip-service in the way we talk about our concern for our older people; but, in truth, there are those who act as if they are an impediment to progress."
Local Link
Mary Kilroy O’Haire is someone who does not belong in this cohort.
For 22 years Mary has steered the wheel at Port Cabs, a Newport-based bus company she runs with her husband Michael and their team of 20 drivers.
A typical Friday morning will see Mary pick up between 15 to 17 older people at their homes, stop off at the post office in Newport and then drive to Westport. The bus arrives in town at around 10.30 in the morning, returning at 2 p.m. for the journey home.
It’s a job for Mary, but a lifeline for the people she works for.
She said: "Without rural transport or Local Link these people wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. We pick them up at the door of their homes, bring them around, carry their shopping for them, help them in, and sometimes we put the shopping away. A lot of them live alone."
As Mary explains, there is nothing ‘extra’ about going the extra mile; it’s part of the job.
"We’ve even lit fires for people. Sometimes they’re just not fit to do it themselves. You know well they would be sitting there in the cold.
"When we collect our clients in the morning, if there’s no answer at the door we never leave the house unless we get a phone call, or we look in windows just to be sure."
For many children, at least in days past, one of the rules growing up included waiting to be spoken to before speaking. The value behind the rule was a two-syllable word often bandied about today: respect.
Children learned to listen while they waited. And of course, while we listened, we learned to respect the values, experiences and beliefs of our parents and grandparents, insights of real worth to us.
Thinking back on her own life, Mary acknowledges that the one thing she regrets is not listening enough to the stories her parents could have told her: "I never thought I’d need them. Now I realise … I didn’t ask enough questions."
"I don’t know if my generation knows better now; I think our parents and grandparents knew a lot more than they let on. If I had a message for young people today it would be to look after the elderly and listen to them. Ask questions – and listen to the answers."
Knowing how frail life is, involving those who are older members of society is something Mary describes as important in the 'here and now' and not to be postponed to a later date that might never come around.
Respect
This September, an 80-year-old Clare man made headlines after he spoke about his 'horrific' experience of spending more than two days on a trolley in University Hospital Limerick while recovering from a quadruple heart bypass.
To Michael Kilcoyne, these scenarios, and other developments including cuts to medical card entitlements and priority medication in terms of hospitalisation, reflect badly on how the state values older people.
He adds: "Two things that older people fear most are their house being broken into and being injured. This is happening in society and there does not appear to be the level of concern about it that there should be in my view; but that comes back to government policies in terms of where governments want to spend resources."
He is unequivocal in his analysis: "Governments have failed older people."
It goes without saying that showing respect is a basic feature of humane society. When we disregard our elderly, we are laying the foundations for a bleak future for our own posterity.
At its core, respect for others is grounded in a belief that every man and woman is made in the image of God and therefore of equal, immeasurable value regardless of age, ability, or social status. The Scriptural exhortation to 'honour thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land' is one we would do well to remind ourselves of – and to teach to our children.
Education is worth absolutely nothing if it comes unaccompanied by a heart of kindness and integrity.
Our society does not need more experts, more reports, more smooth, empty words. We need heart. We need people like Mary Kilroy O’Haire, people who get up every morning and do the hard work, people who are not afraid to get their hands dirty shovelling coal or clearing driveways, people who believe in common decency and respect for all.
If we had more men and women of the calibre of Mary, and less politicians and ‘experts’ whose priority is to be seen to be doing something, our health system, our country, and indeed our county would be in a far better place.
As we face into the winter months, let this be a timely reminder for all of us to face up to our own responsibilities; to acknowledge the older people in our lives and, most of all, to respect them for who they are.