Qualifying Quality of Life

“Do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know.” – Celeborn, Lord of the Galadhrim

Celeborn was not speaking directly about the elderly, but his words bear on the eternal human condition. We live in a time when normal people reach ages previously reserved only for a select few. As a result, people have sought ways to end their lives as they reach a point where their “quality of life” is no longer high enough. I, however, believe this term to be mostly empty and better replaced by the old-fashioned notion of human dignity.

What is quality of life? It seems to consist in having dignity of a sort. When one cannot care for oneself, is old and feeble, or forgetful one is losing quality of life. It seems to me, however, that the term misses something. For millennia the elderly were held in honor and taking care of their extra needs was something carried out because of their dignity not because they were childlike.

I admit not all people age well, but when we speak of quality of life we reduce the idea of life to comforts and eases. Life is never completely comfortable or easy and bearing its burdens is part of what it means to live life fully. Even as a person with Crohn’s Disease, who has suffered in pain in a hospital bed, I cannot say that that experience has reduced my quality of life. In fact, in some sense it has enhanced it for me and those around me; it brought experience and further understanding of life’s ways.

And that is precisely why the old were often accorded additional dignity. They were versed in the ways of life because they had lived life. Its quality was not passing, simply its quantity. The elderly should be accorded respect, dignity, and honor and not concerns about quality of life. This language debases the honor it seeks to bestow. And while some may say the issue is simply semantic, I would argue that changes in language mirror changes in culture and thought and vice versa. The elderly deserve our respect because of their inherent human dignity and their having lived life and learned its lessons. Suffering and being served are qualities of life, not impediments to quality of life. Shifting our focus in this way could mean a change in paradigm, a motion toward treating the elderly with bygone distinction and love.