by Paul Cleaver

Created on: March 13, 2010   Last Updated: March 14, 2010

We often tend to bandy about the word duty as if we understand its meaning. For those of us that have served our country the term duty holds special meaning. And I look upon my elderly parents with a sense of pride knowing that my father served his country for 24 years. And my mother raised four children while following my father from duty station to duty station.  So the word duty has a different meaning for me than I think it has for some of the people that have submitted for this subject.

I feel that I have a duty to honor and respect my aging patents and to show them the respect that they are due as my parents. I was also taught from an early age to honor and respect my elders. I believe that if you were to look up the definition for the word duty in just about any dictionary you will find the terms respect and honor shown as part of the definition. I feel that this is something that has been lost and is sorely lacking in today’s society and I pity our future generations the lost manners that were taught to me out of course as a young lad and the same I taught my son’s, who still to this day will hold the door open or give up their seat on the bus or train (whether the young lady likes it or not). I am “beating this dead horse” because I feel that it lies at the root of all the “No” submissions that I read. There are too many people that for some reason or another have lost respect for their parents and feel that it is a degrading position for them to have to ask for any financial assistance. Well, given the words that I read, if they express the general feeling that the writers have for the parents –OR- parents-in-law concerned then I can see how they would feel terribly degraded having to ask these children for help. It is sad that we dismiss our elders who gave ALL they had for us as children and turn our backs to them in their time of greatest need.

We can use all types of excuses but the facts are simple, our parents who have always been there for us for DECADES, fall upon hard times in the twilight of their lives and we are going to toss around the psycho babble word of the week, “enable”; yes heaven forbid let’s not enable my 80 year old parents! How much time do they have left? I doubt it will be one decade.

To turn your backs on those people that never showed you theirs is cruel and just plain “not nice”. I will do for my parents to the best of my ability and help them wherever I can. Mostly what they want, as the Alzheimer's eats their minds, is just somebody to drop by every day and make sure they are OK. To hide behind all the financial fears and mumbo-jumbo and disregard their very real human fears is the cruelest step any of us can take. ow long do they have

Let’s remember what these people have done for us and would still do for us if we were to ask. Also, for those of us with our own children and grandchildren we need remember that we are setting a very important example. What we do for our own parents we may need to ask for help one day when we are in the sunset of our lives. 

“There but for the grace of God go I”

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