Several years ago, while in college, I had a job working in a factory. One day, my foreman and I were talking. During our conversation, he told me that his father passed away. The funeral was to be in the next four of five days. He had the responsibility of notifying his family and making the arrangements.
Unfortunately, his family was not close. In fact, he had not seen his brother in over ten years and had no idea where he lived. With a lot of detective work, this gentleman found his brother before the funeral. Did he live far away of even out of the country? No, actually, he lived in Kettering, Ohio. Ten years had passed, they lived within a few miles of each other and neither of them knew it. What a sad waste.
Coming from a family and community that stresses caring and unity, I was greatly surprised that this type of thing happened. However, after learning more about life as the years passed, I found that this situation is much more common than one might expect.
I once read of a wealthy business man who was elderly and needed to go to a nursing home. He gave his wealth to his children with full power to control it. There was plenty of money to support him in nice accommodations without touching the principal. When his children got control of the money, they immediately put him in a very cheap home, neglected him completely, and spent the money.
I cannot conceive of these two situations happening to myself or any of the people that I know to be my friends. Nevertheless, a hard lesson can be learned.
The one person that we can count on is ourselves. If we are lucky, we can count on our wives, husbands, parents, children or our friends. If we are very lucky, we can count on all of them.
Who can you count on - Mike's Photo and Thoughts Website
