Monday, February 19, 2007

Mother Teresa was right

I'll never forget when Blessed Mother Teresa said that the greatest poverty of America was spirtual poverty, as evidenced in the loneliness of the elderly.
A recent story in the local news is a shocking example of this; a 70 year old man's mummified body was found in his home this week in Hampton Bays, NY. He had been dead one year when they found him, yet his TV WAS STILL ON!!
Lesson here: if your electric bill is paid, nobody bothers with you.
How sad this story is, yet, I wish it were unique. My Latin American students were horrified when I told them about it, and agreed unanimously that this would NEVER have happened in there poverty striken villages in Central America and Mexico. Their poverty is different, and perhaps easier to remedy.

2 comments:

catholicandgop said...

Its so sad, every time there is a heat wave the city has to come out and tell people to check on the elderly, relatives or neighbors. I guess people don't ever bother to talk to their elderly relatives and then they get sick and die during the heatwave and nobody knows. Thats terrible.

EC Gefroh said...

I read that and I felt so badly that no one cared about him to even notice him missing.