What We Can Learn From Our Elders

We look at the man at the grocery store with pity. We look at him as if he’s old and cant do anything. As if he is useless. But our elders are smart and have seen the world like we have not. Elders of this generation have gone thorough WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Great Depression and many more things. They have seen the country through times of despair, violence and have grown from it. They are not just old, look into their eyes. Once they were running through a field with their family. They were young, they went though all that you are.

From my volunteering at my local hospital, on the cancer unit, I have seen despair but seen love come from it. One time, a man with Alzheimer’s was sitting in the hall, and I didn’t know why. Most patients were in their rooms with their families. I asked the nurses and they told me that he was in the hall because he continued to get out of bed and was falling and getting hurt. So he was at the nurse’s station so they could keep an eye on him. He called me over and I could see pain in his eyes. A longing for something better than this hospital. A longing to leave, through the doors, or in the morgue. He asked if I could help him get out of here. That he had “places to go and people to see”… But he didn’t. I later learned that his family had abandoned him at a nursing home. I told him that the nurses wanted him here and that when it was time to go he would leave. A smile crept up onto his face. I made his day, just by being there and listening.

“I am missing out on important stuff.. When I’m here, I am not in the real world” he complained. And I understood the pain. He was seeing all the nurses hustling around him; life going on. And he was stuck.  But, I realized that there was nothing I could do. I comforted him and told him he would leave soon.

I met him on my first day, and he was there for the following two weeks. I have never seen him again. I knew he had cancer but it never infected his attitude or happiness.

He had no family, nowhere to go, but he was happy with the small things in life. Not the kind of happy you get when you get the latest technology, not the happiness you get when you get an A, but a happiness that you are living life to the fullest. He was not stuck on yesterday. He was living on today. He was happy with the chocolate I gave him, and the card he received. It was the small things that made his day. He realized that he did not have a lot of time left, and chose to make it good. That’s something that most of us can’t do…

We are pre-occupied on our job, social media, or TV to notice life flying by. We blink and it’s been 10 years. When you are nearing your end, you live for the minute. You cherish the moments with your family and friends. Elders are calm and content with the life that they live. We are not like that.

We are a generation of worry.

We worry that we wont get good grades. We WORRY that wont get into a good college. We WORRY that we wont get a good job.

We need to look upon our elders, and learn. Learn what it is like to be happy with the now. Be happy with what we have.