Letters

Window on Elder Care

Posted

I’m appropriately reading Joe R. Struble’s letter to the editor the day before Mother’s Day (CNY, May 11), about St. Patrick’s Cathedral’s stained glass window of St. Augustine at the deathbed of his mother and how Mr. Struble looks at the “good women who were (and had long been) ministering to Monica.” It reminds this modern day son of his late mother’s nurses “who knew what to do and how to do it.” This is what he “needed to feel.” 

But caring for elders is too often inadequate, and for many, unconscionably unaffordable. Caring for elders by family members is often called a burden. Even if the population were not aging, infinitely more attention should be paid, including by the Church, so that elder care is seen as important to provide as “younger age care.” I might add everyone should learn basic care-giving skills. Old lives must matter.

Bette Dewing

Manhattan