What Country Do We Live In?

How can we let our elderly beg on the street for food?

On the grassy median, at the edge of the road that winds through a large shopping center for Home Depot and Barnes & Noble, an old woman stands. She is stocky with curly iron gray hair, wearing khaki shorts that barely cover her knees, a yellow polo shirt pulled tight over ample breasts and she leans on a cane which keeps her from tottering on swollen legs. She clutches a sign. She is, of course, masked.

We pull slowly past her with just enough time for us to read the sign: cardboard, hand penciled and covered in plastic. It says: Only on Social Security. No Money for Food or Medications.

“Wait,” I say to my husband. “She needs money.” We drive a block or two until we can turn around, return and stop. She lets me take a photo of her sign. “I can’t afford my medication. It just went up $10,” she says. I don’t ask if it is an additional $10 a pill, a day, a week. It doesn’t matter. She can’t afford it. I hand her a twenty dollar bill and wish her well.

As we drive away I feel like crying. She has social security. That means that she or her husband worked and paid into the system. How can it be that we care so little for our elderly that they have to stand and beg for money? Why don’t we, who live in the richest country in the world, take care of our people? How have we come to this?

I am sick to my stomach.