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Be Not Afraid Caringconnections they have with their children by mid-lifeand enter old age in loneliness.A young woman I know says that in the nursing homewhere she used to work, it was not unusual for a dyingclient’s family to instruct the staff not to call during thenight. “Don’t call me while I’m sleeping,” one man toldher when she called to say that his father might dieduring the night. “Give me a ring in the morning, if youhave to.”Such callousness may be extreme, but its causes arepervasive: estrangement, isolation, and long periodsof physical separation. After visiting the United Statesin the mid-1990s, Mother Teresa spoke of her shockat seeing how our country tends to warehouse itselderly. While noting that in one place she visited,they seemed to have no material lack – food, medicine,nurses, comfortable furniture, entertainment, and thelike – she also described their bored, blank stares andtheir gaping mouths, their resignation, and the waysome kept glancing toward the door. “Sister told me,”she said, “that this is the way it is nearly every day.They are waiting, hoping that a son or daughter willcome to visit them. They are hurt because they havebeen forgotten.”The plight of the institutionalized elderly seemssimple enough to pinpoint, but it has many deep-goingroots and defies a simple solution. Talk to anyone with18