Quality of Life Much?

Here’s a heartbreaking story from the El Paso Times. I am reprinting it in its entirety.

This holiday season, the El Paso Times features families who are being helped through the El Paso Times Senior Fund. Although we highlight the campaigns during the holidays, donations are needed year-round to help those in need.

A 72-year-old woman in the 79928 area is caring for her 76-year-old husband. The wife reported that her husband suffered a stroke some years ago, and because of the stroke, he underwent three surgeries on his spine.  At that time, she decided to retire to care for her husband. 

In January 2020, her husband had a hip replacement due to a fall he sustained.  The husband’s balance is still not good, making him more prone to falls despite physical therapy. 

He now finds himself mostly confined to his bed and has developed diabetes.  She feels that this latest issue has made him depressed. They have extremely high medical bills due to numerous hospital visits.  As if things weren’t already difficult, she reported that her car broke down and cannot have a mechanic look at it, much less repair it.  

With all of their monthly bills, including mortgage payments, living on a fixed income makes it difficult to purchase all the necessary supplies her husband needs and utilizes to care for him properly. She has approached the Area Agency on Aging for assistance with incontinence supplies to continue caring for her husband at home. She states that she cannot believe that she has to ask for assistance as a retired teacher.  Her husband’s health issues have changed him. 

She states that she sometimes can’t help feeling that her husband is not the person she once knew.  She never believed their life would be this way in their retirement years. Assistance with incontinence supplies would help to somewhat ease the burden of this wife in knowing she has the right tools to continue to help care for her husband.

How You Can Help

The Senior Fund has helped elder residents more than 25 years. It is a partnership between the El Paso Times, the Rio Grande Area Agency on Aging and United Way of El Paso County.

Residents can make a donation by visiting unitedwayelpaso.org and click on the donate button on the home page.

The Rio Grande Area Agency on Aging coordinates services for those seeking assistance. United Way handles donations, reviews expenses and helps provide transparency on how the funds are used.

For questions about the Senior Fund, particularly how to apply for assistance or make donations of items related to the profiled seniors, contact the Area Agency on Aging at 915-533-0998.

How do you suppose an increase in property taxes affects these individuals?*

Do you imagine they go to the ballgames very much?

Do you think that the Downtown Management District, or the Chamber of Commerce, or MountainStar Sports Group, or the lawyers at Kemp Smith, consider people like this when they make their decisions to move forward with their Quality of Life projects?

Do you believe our City Representatives offer more than thoughts and prayers to the less fortunate? Do you think that they even offer thoughts and prayers?

How about Tommy G?

I don’t mean to portray these people as heartless, money grubbing scrooges, whose only interest is further enriching themselves, under the guise of civic mindedness, even though they obviously are, obviously, heartless, money grubbing scrooges, happy to tax old people out of their homes, and their Depends. But I don’t mean to portray those people like that.

How can anyone live like that? How can they look themselves in the mirror? How can they kiss their wives, and their kids, and their mothers? Do they expect that poor people should move out of town?

Hopefully they’ll get visited by some Christmas ghosts.

The City needs to step back and reassess its priorities.

* This particular couple appears to live outside the city limits, but it’s not a stretch to imagine people in El Paso who are also in dire economic circumstance.