Community

I don't know if this is a particularly "southern" thing, but ever since I was tiny, my life has never been about just me. Or even about just my blood kin family. It has always been about community. I grew up in a time when people took care of each other. We did not consider it an unbearable burden. We did not look upon it as partiularly "heroic." We just did it. By the time I came along, families were beginning to scatter across the country, sometimes leaving elderly parents or grandparents dependent upon the kindness of non-family members. Even when family lives "close," they may be too mired in addictions, debt, and other problems to care for aging family members.

People tend to shy away from the thought that they may one day be helpless. That physical and/or mental deficits may put them at the mercy of strangers. Sure, there are professional facilities, but in most of these places, staff is overworked and underpaid. They have little time to pay attention to all but the most basic of needs. Even in a good facility, residents are treated better if staff knows that an outside someone is liable to pop in unannounced.

But, we have largely become a nation of "not my problem." Few have the time or patience to be there for the people who have no close kin or whose friends have passed on. I find it sad and a bit scary.

One day, that person with no one may be me.