Woman’s life was anything but ‘garbage’
It was incredibly saddening and heartbreaking to hear another person died an indignant death on the streets of Winnipeg last week.
I’m talking about the elderly woman found dead in a cardboard bin at a recycling plant. She likely used the bin to seek shelter from the cold weather and to get away from the rest of the world.
I cannot grasp what it may take for someone to take such extreme measures and allow oneself to become garbage in the eyes of the rest of the world.
When I was a garbage man more than 25 years ago, I ran up and down the alleys of Edmonton picking up garbage from peoples homes.
It was respectable enough work and provided an important service for the community — at some point all of us decide something is no longer valuable and throw it away, trusting someone else will bring it to the landfill and deal with it.
We value everything by usefulness. When things lose their usefulness, they lose how much we hold on to them. Eventually we throw them in the garbage.
That happens with people as well.
When someone seems to lose their usefulness, there can be a point where we discard them.
There are many reasons why people are discarded. Society often puts a person’s value on their earning power or potential earning capacity. When someone is injured, or has a mental or physical illness and can’t work anymore, they too can quickly be seen as a burden to society. The elderly especially are often seen the same way.
And that’s the sad part about this world.
I’m glad not all of us are judged on our usefulness, because our own usefulness can change in a second. A car accident, cancer, job loss …these are all things that make us turn to others for help, perhaps for the rest of our lives.
Where would we be if family, community and friends discarded us if we lost our earning power or usefulness?
We are heading for Christmas, and if any time of the year brings family and loved ones together, it’s now.
My hope is that this Christmas, people take the time to appreciate the people both close and afar, literally and emotionally. My hope is people see the bigger picture this Christmas.
The woman who died last week was, at some point, somebody’s daughter, somebody’s niece, somebody’s granddaughter — perhaps somebody’s mom, sister or even wife.
But somewhere along the line, she was discarded. She became human debris. She literally became garbage that was picked up and brought to the dump.
It’s been said many times, many ways, but the true measurement of our society is how we care for the least of our citizens.
As an optimist, I believe we are getting better at making sure we do everything we can to help those that can’t look after themselves — that’s what makes a community strong.
But we have a long way to go. Perhaps this elderly woman’s death can help us build a stronger community.
— Floyd Perras is the executive director of Siloam Mission.
