Now I'm totally pissed off!!!!

I rarely watch network television; and when I do, it's usually just to watch football or baseball.

 

But this evening in a moment of complete boredom and the fact that my television was already on that channel anyway.....since I was watching the SuperBowl last night, I actually watched a little bit of our local news.

 

....and I wish that I hadn't.

The news is usually depressing enough, but I saw something that really disturbed me and pissed me off all at the same time.

 

 Because the news segment that I saw, had to do with an elderly man that was over 100 years old being "allegedly abused" by a young man that worked at the nursing home that he was living in.  The nursing home, I might add, that his family just assumed that he was being well cared for in.

He had apparently mentioned to his granddaughter that sometimes "bad things" happened there.....and sometimes those "bad things" happened to him.  From the sound of the news segment, it seemed that either the old dude was starting to lose it and his granddaughter was skeptical or perhaps he was just being cryptic out of embarrassment over what was happening to him.

In an effort to understand just what was going on with her loved one, his granddaughter had left a video camera in his room to record what happens to him when she's not there.

Well apparently the old gentleman was actually being sexually assaulted by one of the young men that worked there......and the final assault was actually caught on tape.

That's right, he wasn't getting beaten up, like what happens to so many elderly patients at these types of facilities (and yes I'm gonna get back to that in just a minute), he was being sexually assaulted.  At the end of the news segment, they showed the mugshot of the booty snatching attendant.  Yes thankfully, they arrested him and took his ass to jail.

This story really pissed me off, because it reminded me of just what happened to my own dear grandfather.

My grandfather was a farmer who lived in central Alabama throughout his entire life.

He was born in 1913 to a bi-racial farmer in Clanton, Alabama.  After just a few years of school, he left school to help my great grandfather work the family farm full time.  While he toiled on that farm, tilling the soil and raising livestock, a few of his siblings and all of his children went to college.  All of his grandchildren went to college.  Many of us have at least one degree, more than a few have master's degrees.

My grandfather dedicated himself to working from sun up to sun down on that farm.  He worked hundreds of acres of land; raising livestock, planting crops.....doing back breaking work.  He was the most fit man that I ever met.  When I was a college student and he was in his 70s and I would help him on his farm, he could run rings around me.  He never seemed to tire and like most farmers he worked as long as the sun was up and often times beyond that.

He was a good natured man with a wealth of common sense.  He went to church every Sunday and laughed often.  He was downright funny and I could tell you stories about him that would have you wetting your pants.  Many of the things that I routinely say now, I say because I heard him say them many many many times.

When I look at my generation and I see the many successful, intelligent people that are his grandchildren, I see a little bit of him in all of us.

Well, when my grandfather turned 75 or so, we could all see that he was starting to change.  His mind wasn't quite as sharp anymore and within time, he started becoming easily confused, he started forgetting things that he had known like the back of his hand, he forgot our names and sometimes he told us things he wouldn't have in years prior.

Alzheimer's destroyed the man I knew.

So my family placed him in a long term care facility.  It wasn't very far from where he lived and my mother, one of my aunts and my uncle regularly visited him there.  His children were looking after him.  One day my mother went there to see him on her way home from work and they wouldn't let her see him.  They made many lame excuses, but my mother wouldn't be deterred.  They asked her to come back the next day and she refused.....instead she called my uncle.

When my uncle got there....ready to burn the place down if they wouldn't let him see his father, they finally admitted that there had been an "accident".

One of the attendants that worked in the facility in maintenance; viciously attacked my 80 year old grandfather earlier in the day and beat him to within an inch of his life.

Oh I have never wanted to kill anyone in my life......like I wanted to kill that young man; and I wasn't the only one.  The only reason why he is alive today is because he was arrested immediately.  I'm sure that someone in my family would have found him if he wasn't fortunate enough to get arrested.

But that's another story, he went to jail and there is a small part of me that's glad that I didn't have anything to do with burying him somewhere down a dirt road in Alabama..........a small part of me anyway.

My grandfather eventually recovered, my family sued that facility and ended up with enough money to pay someone to come by his house and care for him, along with my grandmother, until he died 7 years later.

My family wouldn't have known what happened to my grandfather, if they didn't go and see him on a regular basis.

There are times that I hear of elder abuse even now, years later and I get angry as hell all over again!!!

There's a special place in hell reserved for the type of people that abuse those that can't defend themselves. 

Anyone of us, or all of us could end up in a long care facility like this.  If you have loved ones that require this type of care, please look after them.  If you're not willing to look in on them and make sure that they're alright, maybe no one will.  Maybe, just maybe your loved one (or even you one day) could end up in a living hell..........day in, day out for the rest of their natural lives.