As I mentioned in my first post, one of my goals for this blog is to raise awareness of the plight of many of our elderly citizens.  This is kind of working backwards, I suppose but it is of great importance.

I have read in other blogs of people disillusioned with our government.  They are certainly falling far short of what they should be doing.  Those who will ultimately pay the biggest price are the young people today.
 
We all grow old...or most of us do.  They talk of the golden age but most of it manage to skate right past that somehow.  As we grow old our priorities and mind set change.  You're suddenly taken from being an independent adult to being (in somecases) ill, alone and feeling useless.  Many people manage to maintain good health for years and that's a wonderful thing.  Many, though find themselves unable to work, dependent on what little they can get from Social Security and with no support system.

You begin to think of dieing because that's what old people do, right?  It's unnerving to realize that suddenly you can't support yourself, your family doesn't seeem to have the time to be bothered, your friends are all old and sick and no one seems to care.

I live in a senior citizens building and I know I could die and no one would know the difference until someone started noticing a strange smell coming from my apartment.  I took care of my mother for 7 years and she died last year.  Left me $1.75 in loose change.  I am legally blind and not one of my relatives offered to help while I was trying to take care of her.  No one is offerring to help now either.

This isn't meant to be a sob story.  I'm not feeling sorry for myself.  I'm grateful every day when I open my eyes in the morning.  I have major health problems but I don't worry about that either.  The very worst of it all is trying to get the governmental agencies to do their jobs.  To get the management of this and other senior apartment buildings to care, and to bring this and similar stories to the general public.

Missouri Social Security in their infinite wisdom decided to check my income back to 2004.  Why the did this I have no clue.  I had worked 6 months in 2003 and 6 months in 2004.  Social security was aware of my income, etc. at that time and everything was fine.  Missouri decided to go back and figure my income for the whole 12 months instead of by the year.  They decided I had made $35.00 too much (not $35.00 a month or week) just $35.00 and decided they would take my disability clear back to 2004 which would require me to pay back 3 years of social secutiry (how I was to do that they didn't tell me).

This agency wasted 3 months on this little project and your tax dollars to justify my $35.00 overpayment.  To begin with if I made too much, social security would have just reduced my check to begin with until they found I could keep the job, they would not have taken my check away completely. 

Long story short, after messing with this for 3 months they decided to let me keep my disability check since I am obviously unable to hold down a job anymore.  Instead of spending their time and our tax dollars on more important things this is what they've been doing.

This is not a rare occurance, it is simply one thing in many things we are forced to deal with on a daily/weekly/monthly basis. 

There are old people everywhere to whom a daily phone call just to chat, an occasional ride to the grocery store, going out for lunch or just someone showing some compassion or caring in some way would make a world of difference.  Are you really so busy that you don't have an hour a week to give to someone who needs that hour?  Remember, you'll be where we are one day....

Something I've learned:
Above all things love yourself.  Forgive yourself.