Sunday, February 14, 2021

WHERE’S THE LOVE FOR OLDER ADULTS?

In the Kabbalistic spiritual tradition, we are taught to go beneath the surface of what is presented to us by “Revealing the Concealed.” “I gather the ability to bring forth the powers of observation to see the truth and the courage to handle it.” ⁽¹⁾

In Christian Mysticism, we are led to see the face of Jesus in those who are outcasts, as mystics like Tessa Bielecki have promoted ⁽²⁾

In our “Youth Obsessed” culture, I fear that our collective view of the Elderly has shifted from “troubelsome contempt” to “invisibility.”

Nearly one year after the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, Andrew Cuomo, Governor of New York, has reportedly been responsible for a fatal cover-up. Nineteen thousand older adults in that state have been sent back to Skilled Nursing Facilities from hospitals to recover from Covid, thus spreading it to other residents. This took place even though, as you may recall, a large military ship was sent to New York from the White House last year to manage the overflow from hospitals so that a situation like this could be avoided. Governor Cuomo turned the ship away as 19,000 older adults perished.

Here in our State of California, scores of older adults remain unvaccinated in facilities, despite the fact that these folks were supposed to have been prioritized for the vaccine. It has been reported on network news that the wealthy are receiving these vaccines instead.

As a licensed clinical social worker for the County of Los Angeles, I witness daily the needs of older adults being ignored in favor of other social groups, often in the name of “social justice.”

But consider this: If you are a social justice warrior who believes that it is mostly people of color who are being disproportionately discounted, many of the 19,000 older adults who died from Covid were people of color. If you are an older adult, you are invisible, no matter what color you are!

You may think to yourself: “This can never happen to me. I have a home where I can return to if I catch Covid and must be hospitalized.” But how long will you have this home? As an older adult with a fixed income in Southern California, it is becoming an increasingly hostile environment for the middle-class tax payer, homeowners and renters alike.

Perhaps someday, they’ll be coming for YOU.

(1) The 72 Names of God Meditation Deck, “Technology for the Soul”, Yehuda Berg

(2) “Wild at Heart”, Radical Teachings of the Christian Mystics”, Tessa Bielecki, Sounds True Audio Learning Course.