'One day it will be you': Blogger's touching Facebook post hits a nerve
A blogger has warned people to be kind and patient to the elderly warning one day they might need help too.
Melbourne mum Adele Barbaro, who blogs as The Real Mumma, took to Facebook after witnessing two elderly people being treated poorly while others “fade away into the busy life” they live.
“One man just needed Panadol for his wife but the shop assistant simply said ‘it’s in 6’,” she wrote.
“But he struggled to navigate the supermarket and as I watched him go in the wrong direction, I left all my groceries and took him where he needed to go.”
She added days later she watched an elderly man “struggle in the heat” who had “obviously had a fall with a huge scrape and blood on his leg”.
But she claims no one paid attention to him.
“He walked past people in the cafe, while he slowly made his way to his car. Not one person stopped or looked or acknowledged him,” Ms Barbaro wrote.
“I took him to his car and checked he was OK. He told me he had a fall and wasn’t sure how the air con worked in his car so he just didn’t use it.
“I sat with him, until his air con kicked in and heard him talk about the old frail body that he is in, that fails him now, every single day.”
The mum said people need to pay more attention to the elderly and show empathy.
She included a picture of herself holding a sign, which reads, “One day it will be you”.
“When you see an elderly person walking down the street, searching in the supermarket or struggling to their car, take a minute out of your busy schedule and ask them if they need a hand,” she wrote.
“Think about your grandparents and your parents and how pissed you would be if someone didn’t stop to help them.”
She added “once upon a time they were you” and had responsibilities such as work and children.
“They deserve our utmost respect and consideration,” she wrote.
“One day it will be you, it will be us. I wish more people gave a s*** about them and acknowledged them for their admirable existence and geez I hope someday, not that far away, someone does it for me.”
The post seems to have struck a chord with readers as more than 88,000 Facebook users have liked it and 56,000 have shared it.
There are more than 5300 comments too with many writing about their own experiences with the elderly.
One woman wrote she recently discovered her elderly neighbour’s cancer diagnosis. He had driven himself to hospital.
“They deserve our utmost respect and consideration.”
“Once I heard, I went and locked up his house, checked his mail, fed his cat and walked to the hospital via the florist so I could drive his car home,” she wrote.
“After reassuring him all was OK and giving him the flowers, I went back to his house and did his dishes and took out his garbage.”
Another woman wrote she recently saw an elderly gentleman’s card get declined while trying to pay $47 for groceries so she “leant over and tapped” hers to pay for his food.
“It’s small and means more to him than me and if I can help I will,” she wrote.
Several others shared stories about helping elderly people carry grocery bags, cross the street and offering shelter in the rain.
In October, a woman who was in hospital for surgery on the Sunshine Coast told Yahoo7 she witnessed a kind young nurse’s act for an elderly bed-ridden patient.
Courtenay Noble said she saw a nurse “no older than 25” wheel out the patient so she could see some sun at the end of the corridor.
The nurse then held the woman’s hand as they sat together.
In July, Bendigo dad David Love melted hearts after he was filmed helping out a senior citizen who was struggling to pay for his meal at McDonald’s.
The dad caught sight of the older gentleman counting his coins while trying to scrape enough to pay for his breakfast. So, Mr Love offered to shout the stranger.
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