Help The Aged

“History doesn’t repeat itself but it does rhyme.” — Mark Twain

Billie and I escaped a biblical downpour over the weekend to catch a preview screening of The Father. The film, which captures the mental unraveling of an elderly man with heart-wrenching tenderness, got me to reflecting on my pre-occupation with the aged community.

While two of my current spec screenplays feature protagonists in their golden years, it’s my recent care-taker work — taking elderly patients to and from medical appointments — that has put this unusual curiousity into focus.

Our elders have borne witness to the very best and worst that life has to offer by virtue of their age.

They have answers to the questions we’re still forming. Remedies to illnesses yet to take hold.

Their fragility reminding us of the impermanence of everything we take for granted.

Xo