If not you, then who?

THIS is a growing issue in America and no one ever talks about it. (It’s a gift article so you can read it even if you don’t subscribe to the NY TIMES.)

It has nothing to do with ratings or programming and everything to do with humanity and compassion.

When my mother was in her 80s, living alone in Kentucky, hundreds of miles from me and even further from my older sister, she had a fall. She broke one wrist and suffered deep cuts all across the second joint of her fingers in the other hand. So both hands were basically out of use until they healed.

I was in London when I heard from my sister, and flew to see my mother as soon as I returned.

She was basically helpless. She couldn’t grasp anything so she couldn’t cook or open bottles of her medications. She needed help showering, dressing, cleaning herself…

I stayed with her for a week, and then my son, recently graduated from college, volunteered to come and care for his grandmother until the crisis was over.

He ended up living with her in her small, one-bedroom apartment, for a month, sleeping on her couch, taking care of all her personal needs until her hands healed.

I told him he earned extra points in heaven by doing this. I was – am – immensely proud of him, and he and my mother stayed really close for the rest of her life. I’ve always thought she died a day before his birthday so that she wouldn’t make his day a bad memory day for him.

I share all this so you can understand why this issue is important to me.

And I share the issue because some of you will figure out a way to be helpful in your communities.

You might help create a new service organization, or inspire someone listening to you to get their church involved, or make it personal enough that you “adopt” one of these “kinless elders” yourself.

There’s a lot of good in our world that no one ever sees.

Maybe you can be the catalyst to create just a little bit more.