While looking for a suitable image for this post I came across this poster.
For once, the words more so than the image got me thinking, 'profound dignity', not something I automatically associate with ageing I must admit. Sadly I think I have quite the opposite expectation. I dread the thought of ageing and the increasing possibility of becoming vulnerable, physically and emotionally. Like everyone I hope and pray my own experience will be different, but in today's society, in Britain just as it is in India, the elderly are shamefully disregarded all too often. We all know it, we see it everywhere we look. But what are we prepared to do about it? Surely if we don't change this trend it will indeed become our own fate too.
The other day I was driving along, passing a few small shops clustered along a street I knew from my childhood. It was one of those streets that used to have a proper butchers, a greengrocers, a shop that sold model airplanes and tanks, a newsagents and an old fashioned hard wear shop where I remember collecting wood shavings for free for my hamster.
Today this same street looks unrecognisable, and yet all too familiar. It has a sort of stripped bare, grubby 'takeway' vibe now. The vibrancy I remember has gone, drained away over the years along with the independent shop keepers, replaced by a lone mini mart, a kebab shop and a betting shop.
Looking out my car window as I sat at the traffic lights I saw a little old lady, a remnant of my childhood. Someone who no doubt had lived her whole life around this street, as had my Nana and Grandad. She might have been my Nana once upon a time, today she was someone's Nana, maybe yours?!
She was walking along as best she could pulling her tartan shopping trolley. She was tiny, noticeably hunched and obviously vulnerable. Just as she was about to reach for the shop door, out of no where came a man. A youngish man, fast on his feet, able bodied and fit I remember thinking at the time. I don't know why this seemed to matter but it did somehow. With his hands jammed firmly down into his trouser pockets and without a moments hesitation, he stepped in front of this tiny old lady, rudely brushed her aside, shamelessly opened the door for himself and went into the shop, utterly oblivious and without a moments care for her needs. The door swung shut in her face.
To say this man was rude would be making light of what I fear is a much more sinister and alarming reality. I am afraid that today's society, the society we all share and will one day be at the mercy of ourselves, in in danger of changing beyond recognition. I feel we too must make it our own personal mission to fight for a life of 'profound dignity' for our elders today, or we can expect no better for ourselves tomorrow.
What's the solution? What can we do?
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