Success or Relationships?

Sometimes taking care of our elderly is becoming an obstacle to a career or a dream which we are striving to reach or realize in life. Other times, we just wish to earn more money and entrust our elderly to caregivers while we lose the value of a deep relationship, and the chance to express concretely our gratitude to them. We must admit that this is the salty bill we pay for a society that has become sophisticated. A shift in values is much needed. Will we prioritize success and wealth, or relationships?

We wish to offer some considerations: First of all, what we are trying to challenge here is the mentality of apathy. If we really love our parents, we can think of many creative ways to show our concern and care for them. If we can manage, let’s see to it that our last resort will be to bring them to a home for the aged.

Keeping our old parents with us can also be a balancing presence at home, especially when we have kids. And if we explain things to them, they will also be moved to love and care for their grandparents. They become channels of wisdom and family traditions. The generation gap will be bridged. If we can only record all the wisdom and knowledge that the elderly have experienced and gathered in life, we will not be surprised at how they can be compared to a library. This made me recall an African saying “when an old person dies, it is as if a library has been burned down.” It is also true that in a family with more brothers and sisters, it is easier to provide for those in need of care.

They have an opportunity in this situation to strike a new solidarity between generations. Our elders are the living memory of a people and the sign of how human dignity is treasured. We then try to build together “a Church that challenges the culture of waste with the overflowing joy of a new embrace among young people and the elderly!” (AL 191).). Pope Francis once also said that a family that does not take care of their elderly has no future.

Also we can instill the positive value of the well-known Filipino saying:
“Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinanggalingan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan” (Those who do not know how to look back to where they came from will not reach their destination). In a way through our parents or grandparents, life has flowed down to us, and it’s important to have this “utang na loob” or debt of gratitude towards them, for keeping us alive in the first and fragile stages of our own life. So we must readjust our priorities: success, wealth or the human person?

I cannot think of a successful businessman who is not kind to his/her elders in the family, especially to his aging parents. We cannot call him a successful person at all, as he or she fails first and foremost in the very essentials of humanity: relationships. We have to consider the presence of our elderly as a blessing. The more we love them, the more we will discover the beauty and treasure hidden in them.

A friend shares, “When my mother was in her last stage of life, we nursed her like a baby. Some of us had to give up careers and studies just to be beside her for almost a year. It was hard taking care of her as she was paralyzed and we had to do everything for her, like feeding and bathing her. Yes, it was a difficult experience but what happened was unexpected. We became more united as brothers and sisters. We became more compassionate of people who were going through a similar situation.

When my mother died after a year, slowly, slowly, we could pick up our ordinary lives: two sisters were able to migrate with their families to a new country with good jobs. Most of us found our place under the sun and we all really felt more blessed. We were thankful for that time when we became more united as a family, closer to each other, valuing relationships in family life. It was as if time stopped for us in those months. It was my mother’s sickness which brought on all these and we can say that it was one of the most beautiful periods in our family life, where we lived in simplicity and moderation, as we strove to love our sick and elderly mother, and each other.”