Elder care

In 2011, my friend Suzy and I traveled to Tennessee on book-publishing business. In those days, in the town of Franklin, there was a landmark restaurant called Dotson’s. It was what they call in the South a “meat ’n’ three,” its menu a résumé of rib-sticking, down-home fare like meat loaf, cornbread, collard greens, and mac ’n’ cheese, before mac ’n’ cheese went bougie.

After we ate way too much, Suzy and I headed up front to pay our bill. Behind the cash register sat an elderly man, in his 80s for sure, wearing a ballcap and a dark blue polo shirt. I felt a little sorry that he was still working a register at his age. Maybe he wanted to stay active and social … or maybe he needed the money.

The man’s shirt bore the logo of a Navy ship—a destroyer, as I recall. Being a fellow veteran, I asked him about it, whereupon he launched into the swashbuckling tale of his naval service.

“We were the ‘Galloping Ghost of the Korean coast!’” the man said of his ship, leaning forward, crinkly eyes lit with the fire of a younger man. The yarn he spun was long—and so was the line that began stacking up with other customers waiting to pay their bills.

Unbothered, the man threw his right hand up at the waiting crowd just like a traffic cop. “Hang on a minute!” he called in his Tennessee drawl. “I’m tellin’ a sea story!”

“You go right on, Mr. McCloud!” the crowd called back genially.

The man, it turned out, was Arthur Lee McCloud. At 81, he wasn’t a poor or lonely senior—he owned the joint. McCloud had taken over Dotson’s in the 1970s and turned it into a destination. And that was after he fought in the Korean War, then returned to marry the prettiest girl in town.

Suzy, a Californian, was astonished at the graciousness of these Southerners who were waiting to pay. But Southerners, praise the Lord, still slow down to listen. It’s an art—and also a ministry, especially to those advancing in years.

Leviticus 19:32 tells us, “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord.”

I think it’s significant that this instruction comes in a chapter in which the LORD is literally laying down the Law: Be holy. Be just. Keep the Sabbath. Don’t lie or steal or turn to idols. And there, tucked amid these inviolable tenets, is the command to respect the elderly. I take from this juxtaposition that God is serious about this. Sadly, our culture is not.

I was in my late 40s when we met Mr. McCloud. Now, nearing 63, I’m the one advancing in years, trying creams for my own crinkly eyes and shopping at Talbots. A decade ago, I graduated from “miss” to “ma’am.” Now, though, I’m “hon” and sometimes the more patronizing “dear,” which is what they call you right before they clap you in orthopedic shoes and put you in a home.

The older I get, the more I notice people who are older than me. And the more I want to hear their stories. Near the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, this desire began burning more brightly. National Geographic ran a photo essay featuring present-day portraits of WWII veterans. One woman’s portrait captured me: Betty Webb. In the photo, Webb is wearing a red woolen coat and a gold and ivory scarf knotted at the neck. Beneath snow-white hair, she gazes serenely at the camera.

During the war, Webb worked for British intelligence at the top secret code-breaking facility Bletchley Park. Though British herself, Webb also spoke German, so her job was to paraphrase captured intelligence, thus concealing that the Allies had broken Germany’s code.

“We had to make it sound as though it was information we’d picked up from spies or stolen documents or aerial reconnaissance,” said Webb, who died this March at age 101. “I liked the deviousness of it.”

Here’s what hit me: If most of us had seen Betty Webb in a grocery store, we might have thought, wow, she sure is old—if we saw her at all. (Our culture has a way of looking past seniors.) But the truth is, Webb was a war hero. And the only way to know it was to ask her about her life.

I’m making it my mission to take honoring the aged as seriously as God does. Sometimes all it takes is a little time and a working pair of ears.