I just finished reading Man’s Search For Meaning by a man who survived several concentration camps during the Holocaust. It is worth a reread at least every decade because it puts perspective into whatever seems to be threatening our sanity in the day to day. As I am in the end of my seventh decade on earth, I found much of his logotherapeutic approach very comforting. Especially his words about the elderly. Many of my contemporaries, even those who are in excellent mental and physical health, are feeling as though they are being put out to pasture by their children. It is more a dismissive approach to anything they might have to contribute, whether it is by word or deed.
I loved the way Victor Frankl referred to the older people in his manuscript. The youth of today who have not witnessed firsthand a war involving their country, their friends or their family members are missing the context of so many of their elderly relatives. The price that has been paid for the freedom they now enjoy to criticize everything and everyone has been hard earned and hard-won. The respect that our generation grew up with for the generations who paid that price is totally missing from the headlines and from the words and hearts of most people who convey our daily news. This wears heavily on the hearts of older people who are still trying to stay involved and relevant in their families lives, but who are constantly aware their perspective is viewed as incorrect by a much more ‘politically correct’ generation who no longer revere the history older generations actually have lived through. There is often a smug dismissal, rather than the respectful honor most of us over seventy experienced growing up, for the stories and memories of our grandparents. I am always saddened to hear from friends that they feel so invisible to their families.