by Velma aka Shammah

Created on: July 25, 2009

I love the elderly. There's just something in me that draws me to them; wanting to just sit in their presence, to encourage and assure them that they are loved, that they are valued and that they are still needed.

When I saw this title I got a choking feeling in my throat; I wanted to cry. I thought of my own parents. I'd never tell them (unless I felt their lives were at stake) that they had an addiction or were, "substance abusers," and yet, they were. My parents are no longer with me.

I don't recall ever seeing or knowing of either of my parents, in the last 20 or 30 years of their life, ever going to bed at night and sleeping a "natural sleep." Both of them took prescription medication to help them sleep, and in the last several years of my father's life, following the passing of my mother, there were many times when my father would get up in the middle of the night and take yet another "sleeping pill" or some other type of medication to calm him and cause him to fall back to sleep.

Did the substances they took kill them? I don't believe so. I think, possibly, in some ways it may have "preserved" them and we (my family and I) had them with us a wee bit longer. My siblings and I (all 6 brothers and one sister) added a lot of heartache and stress to their lives over the years with our wrong choices and foolish antics! Both of my parents had hereditary health challenges. My family has a very long medical history, on both sides, of heart disease. We all know what stress can do to the body, and particularly the impact on our hearts. It is the number one contributor to high cholesterol.

My parents aside, there are others not so fortunate to have living family involved with them. Nor are others as fortunate as my family and perhaps yours; they are indeed alone and severed from their families.

I think one of my most notable examples of elder abuse comes from when I worked as a counsellor in a women's shelter here in Toronto.

A little old Chinese lady, who stood no higher than 4 feet 5 inches, literally wandered through our doors. She came in and stood there staring at the desk staff. One of the staff brought her into my office and literally "placed" her in a chair, where she sat staring into space, seemingly totally oblivious of her surroundings. We found out she didn't understand English. She tried speaking and her speech was slurred.

Because we dealt with addiction problems daily, my thoughts were, "Surely this sweet little old lady isn't

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