The Final Solution?

10 November 2014


It's unsettling to me that dad is no longer the author of his life, that he's become a sort of science experiment and problem to be dealt with. He's devoted his life to my mum and her family. But, now he's got nothing left to give it seems he's past his best before date. I do seem a wee bit cynical, don't I? Well, I feel very marginalized in my grief. 

Dad ... Nursing Home. I hate that these words live in such close proximity to one another. I have no words, really. Well, I do ... they're contained within the previous post. I can add some more: failure, as in I've failed my dad, who always referred to me as his old age ... betrayal, as in I've betrayed my dad by allowing him to go into one of those storage facilities for humans that society considers bothersome. I've worked in several nursing homes and during my decade as a nurse's aide and then nurse. They're like dumping grounds for the elderly, a place to park them so they don't have to bother us or make us uncomfortable anymore. They're a sort of modern-day Final Solution to the problem of aging and infirmity. 

What have we become as a society, that we can no longer attend to the weak, infirm, and elderly? Why do we refer to people afflicted with Alzheimer's and similar diseases as demented, i.e. having dementia


 

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