Take Good Care Of Your Elders!

History...

Soo many things, so many talks, so much stuff happened before we were born!

Homo erectus first appeared on earth around 1.8 million years ago! 1.8 MILLION! Just think about the things that humans already did, already saw, already created.

Since the beginning, since the first life form first originated on earth, it has been a constant struggle to survive, and humans were and are no exception! We already had wars, we already had diseases, we already had famine, we already had pain and suffering. These are still part of our world!

But can you imagine what your ancestors had to go through for us to be alive? Have you ever thought about that? Our ancestors had to fight off diseases!

The black plague killed between 75 to 200 million people. Nowadays there are still over 1.7 million people that die of Tuberculosis, per year! Imagine what it was like in the 1900s. Just influenza killed 200 people per 100.000 people in 1900! Our ancestors were able to resist or fight off all of these. Our grandfathers, our grandmothers, our great great great grandfathers!

Nowadays we just inject a vaccine into our bodies to resist the really bad diseases and that is it! Well, the normal people do... there are still those anti-vaccines which I've given up trying to persuade...What if we end up with something anyways? We just take some antibiotics, anti-virals or anti-fungal! And, let's not forget that some of the diseases that our ancestors fought off have been encoded into our DNA so that we and our descendants will always have protection against them!

And food...

Nowadays we live in a world of abundance! At least in the developed countries... But, if we travel some centuries to the past, people were starving almost all of their lives! And our ancestors were able to resist this famine!

My grandfather still tells me there were times back in his youth, when his family of 5 only had 1 piece of bread and 1 fish to eat! He jokes that he always ended up with the fish's tail, and he was able to survive... and he is probably the best and strongest person I know!

And the wars...

The one hundred years war, Napolean invading the whole of Europe...World War 1 and 2. Our ancestors survived all of this.

Portugal never joined World War 2, we had a dictator back then, we ended up playing both sides of the war, selling guns and vehicles to both sides! Our country's capital was even known for spy meetings, etc... but we did join world war 1...

A large portion of the Portuguese army committed "suicide" by not falling back during a German push. They did this because they wanted to give time for the British to retreat and set up defenses, yeah Britain you owe us! One of the few survivors was Soldado Aníbal Milhais, a Portuguese soldier that killed hundreds of Nazi Soldiers alone, behind enemy lines and survived.

And even though we didn't join World War 2, many Portuguese people died because of Salazar, our dictator! People that said anything bad about him were tortured and killed! All the information my country got was censored by PIDE! There were bomb attacks and fights all around my country... Yup, we might not have joined World War 2, but we ended up having a fight between ourselves!

One of my grandfathers actually got involved in one of these fights! He was always following Mario Soares around... For those that don't know Mario Soares was our president for some time, but before that, he was involved in the fight against dictatorship, the fight against PIDE and the fight against communism... getting exiled a couple of times, once to Moçambique and once to France!

Now... just looking at all of these wars, famine, and diseases that our ancestors went through... how the hell are some people still not taking care of their elders! Really...

We are all 50% of our mother and 50% of our father! They raised us, they cared for us, they nurtured us, and we owe all we are to them! Yes, taking care of our parents is hard and expensive!

My grandmother on my father's side has bladder problems and she consumes a lot of diapers, and I mean A FUDGING TON OF DIAPERS! I could make a fortress with the number of diapers that woman consumes! But my father and mother still take care of her!

400 bucks every couple of months for diapers and other things, and 1200 bucks per month for the retirement home... It's expensive, yes, but it's also a really good retirement home! All this money compared to the 56 years she helped my father, with food, with life lessons, with money, with me and my brother... 1200 bucks per months seems like a fragment of what that woman did for my family!

Maybe, just maybe, there is just one way for me to agree with someone not taking care of their parents, or their grandparents...when someone has really really REALLY bad parents! Emphasis on the really!

Now, there is a big difference between being a bad parent, and being a really really bad parent, I would even go as far as calling some "demons disguised as parents"!

Let me tell you a quick story...

When I was a teenager I had a friend, let's call him... Leo(not his real name)! Leo had some really really bad habits... He was a drug addict, and no, I'm not talking about weed, he consumed heroin, he smoked heroin(crack), he sniffed cocaine, he took magic mushroom, methamphetamines, etc... he did everything he could get his hands on! But he was a great friend of mine! And even with all of the drugs, I know that he would jump in front of a train to save me! He saved me from some really bad things...

Leo ended up coming with me to Ibiza on our final school year! We partied, we drunk, we did everything together, we were always the last ones to get out of the party! But, all of the drugs were already catching up to him... he was 18 then, and his teeth's gums were falling off, yup... I guess all of that crack was finally taking a toll on his body! He had to go to the hospital and they got him some medicine that made him better... but this was just the start!

I got in college, and with all the college stuff we grew apart... after a couple of years I meet him again, he looked healthier! He had changed city for 3 years, he was studying again, everything was going better! He came back to my town because he wanted to start studying architecture in college! Great! He was finally getting his life in order... until it all fell apart...

What I didn't tell you is that his drug problems were because of his mom! His mother was and is a drug addict. When he was young she locked him in a closet for days without any food or water, she beat him, his father didn't know he existed until he was 7! 7 years of pure torture! 7 years of negligence! 7 years of bad parenting and being surrounded by drugs!

His drug problems started when he was 14, right when his mother came back to my town... his drug problems went away when he wasn't near his mother! Coming back to my town to study architecture was a bad call, he wasn't able to resist all of the drugs... And after being clean for 2 years you can probably guess what happened... Overdose!

Overdose at his mother's house! He went there to talk with her because he needed her, he was feeling down and told her he was sad and depressed, and she totally told him to "fuck off!" leaving him alone... in a room full of drugs! Leaving her child, that was there because he needed her, alone for the hundredth time...

Now, he did everything he could to help his mother! Sometimes he even sold drugs to pay his mother's drug debts... And where did he end up? Lying on a floor, chocking on his own vomit... alone, because his mother didn't give a fuck about him!

The damn woman was high even at his funeral! Every couple of hours she left the funeral and came back high as a kite!

This kind of parent, I would totally leave alone... I wouldn't move a straw to help in any way she or he needed! I cherish human's lives, I do... but there are some people, like this lady, that I don't consider humans!! And the drug use was no excuse! My friend helped me even when he was high. And even though I tried to keep him away from drugs, I wasn't able to...

So, what do I mean by all of this? Cherish your ancestors, your father, your mother, your grandparents, because you are a part of them all, you are the byproduct of their love, and they are the byproduct of their parents and grandparents and great grandparents love! Take care of them because you know they took care of you!

Images Free Source - 1, 2,3,4,5,6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22

Question of the day: Tell me some of the things you do for your parents and grandparents! And what do you think of the new post header with my profile picture on it?

_{I should probably change these templates since I'm not studying to be a Vet anymore...}

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