The title of this piece is French, of course. It means “cry of the heart” in English. It must be assumed that the cry of the heart arises from anguish and distress which causes one to cry out. In this essay, I am going to attempt the impossible. It is to place this French thought in communion with an English poem by Robert Browning.
For the better part of 2,000 years, the French and the English have lived next door to each other but their relations have been cool, to say the least. There are some French who say that the English have become the poodle for the current administration in Washington. The French have responded to this arrangement by becoming partners with the Germans, their adversary in two world wars. I suppose that this is a case where “never the twain shall meet,” but I will make a valiant try for this French thought to snuggle up to the traditional coolness of Her Majesty’s government.
Aside from the cry of the heart, the second part is a poem by Robert Browning which goes in part as follows:
“Come, grow old along with me,
The last of life, for which the first was made.”
My debate and the reason for this essay is the line about “the last of life, for which the first was made.” It seems to me that “the last of life” may well be the time when human beings suffer the most. Aside from human suffering, there is also the dismissiveness that goes with advanced age. This may be an impossible task to reconcile the thoughts of the French “cri” with the sentiments of the British, but I will do the best I can.
My argument basically goes to the sentence about “the last of life, for which the first was made.” My wife and I are patrons of the Summit Medical Group which practices medicine in Berkeley Heights, not in Summit anymore. For more than 50 years, it has been my observation that the people who patronize the Summit Medical Group are older or elderly. I am not quite sure what the difference is between older or elderly, but it has a rhythmic rhyme to it, so there it is.
As people grow older, that is “the last of life,” they are afflicted with ailments of every kind. Starting at the top, there is squamous cell carcinoma which attacks the scalp. There are pacemaker problems which regulate the pumping of blood by the heart. Moving further down the body, there are all kinds of gastric problems, followed by the disabilities of enlarged prostates and hysterectomies. Then there are the fragile hips, bad knees and the edema that strikes the legs of the elderly, causing them to swell. And finally, of course, at the bottom of this list are the ingrown toenails. And to think that I have listed only a few of the thousands of things that might afflict the human body at the last of life.
Clearly those ailments which would have been thrown off by younger people strike the old and elderly. They are vulnerable to diseases of every kind. As they advance in years and illnesses, I suspect that it is common for the elderly to give thought to which of the ailments will eventually carry them away. Any person who gives no thought to these possibilities is simply whistling past the graveyard. So in the beginning, the problems of health and welfare cause us anguish and distress which lead to a cry of the heart. As you can see, so far I am happy to keep the French and the English talking with the hope that, in the following paragraphs, things may warm up.
The second aspect of “the last of life, for which the first was made” has to do with what I will call its dismissiveness. I define dismissiveness when younger people dismiss the thoughts and the actions of their elders. For example, the people who advertise, particularly on television, aim their advertisements at the youngsters between the ages of 18 and 34. I suppose that is why you see so much rock and roll music and the silly situation comedies that choke the advertisements and the television screens. It makes business sense, because the 18-to-34-year-olds will be around for a while, while the elderly have only the funeral parlor in their futures. I completely understand that point of view as a business man.
Here is another case that cries out for it’s dismissiveness. It is the race for the Republican nomination for president of the United States. John McCain, the Senator from Arizona, who spent five and a half years in a North Korean prison under torture, is dismissed by the younger media and candidates as too old to take the oath of President. McCain is 72 now and if he serves a term he will be approaching 76 or 77. Two terms would take him, probably, to his 80th birthday. But I am not a Republican and I have no intention of meddling in their affairs. But no matter how you cut it, this is another case of dismissiveness totally on the ground of age. McCain is older and may be wiser than the younger folks, but he is dismissed simply because of his age. McCain is entitled to a “cry from the heart.”
As older folks progress into their elder years, I suspect that nearly all of them will have experienced dismissiveness at one time or another. I now believe that it is an invitation to be dismissed by younger people when one cites in a letter or in a telephone conversation, the years that one has been patronizing a certain corporation. For example, returning to the Summit Medical Group, they not only know my age but they also know of all the disabilities that have afflicted me. When I wrote to the chairman of the organization, a Mr. Mintz, he politely refused to answer my letter. After two months or so, I wrote a second letter and attached the first letter to it and expressed the thought that it must be the United States Postal System which had refused to deliver my first letter. Obviously, sarcasm had something to do with that second letter. After a time, Mr. Mintz still dismissed me by refusing to pick up his pen and paper and write a letter. He had one of his so-called “patient relations” people call me to discuss my problem. Basically one of my grave problems was the speed bumps that the Summit Medical Group had installed in its parking lot, which were excessively high and provided no slope to approach their top. I suspect that if an obstetrician were having trouble with persuading a new baby to emerge from the womb, he might have suggested or prescribed that the mother-to-be should be driven over Mintz’s speed bumps in an effort to speed delivery. My discussion with the patient relations lady, who was very nice, resulted only in her forwarding my letter to the person in charge of maintaining the parking lot. I could have written to that person in the beginning some months ago, but my foolish excesses said to write to the top man to get the speed bumps fixed. Ahhh… but Mr. Mintz wanted to preserve his channels of communication within the Medical Group and so far, four months after the first letter, he has not really answered me. This is a case of dismissiveness. Am I entitled to a cri de coeur?
There are all kinds of cases where the younger folks tend to dismiss the petitions and the needs of their elders. There are telephone calls that are unreturned. And when the gestures of the elderly are made to the younger ones, there is no reciprocation. I understand why this is taking place. In all likelihood, as a younger man I was guilty of the same offence of dismissiveness. I hope that my elders, if there are any, will forgive my transgressions.
So you see, we have here a second case for a cry from the heart. First there were the health problems and now we have the dismissiveness that attends the elderly as well. So it is clear that this is another reason for a cry from the heart.
Finally, the ultimate in dismissiveness came about as a result of the disastrous war that we had declared in Iraq. France and Germany declined our request to send troops there to the slaughter. For this, Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, dismissed them as “old Europe.” On the other hand, there was Poland, which contributed about 1,000 troops, and was rewarded when Rumsfeld called it the “new Europe.” May I say that if you have a choice between Paris and Warsaw, please take Paris every time.
Finally, when the decision was made to attack Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld and his chief assistant, Paul Wolfowitz, were told by the General Shinseki, Chief of Staff of the United States Armed Forces, that it would take a lot more soldiers to pacify Iraq than to invade it. For his trouble, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz effectively fired General Shinseki. And when General Abizaid, the Commander of all the forces in the Middle East, expressed less than great glee about the so-called “surge,” he was also forced into retirement. These two elder soldiers were dismissed by the younger President and his neocon advisors. Shinseki and Abizaid are entitled to a cry of the heart.
Robert Browning is a poet of English origin and I understand that every poet needs some license to stretch a word here and there to make it rhyme or to make some sense of it. But as I pondered that poem, the silliness of the offending lines which I have cited made me anguished and distressed. And so it was necessary for this essay to be written to suggest that there was a cry of the heart from this old essayist.
Now as to the relations between the English and the French, I am an impartial observer. The French are French and the English are Anglo-Saxons and this old American with Celtic roots looks at the problem between the English and the French with a considerable amount of amusement. It is my judgment that if John Bull were ever to succumb to ardor and passion which might lead him to the fault of making love to Lili Marlene, their romantic overtures might be drowned in the chilly depths of the English Channel, as they have been for the last 2000 years.
I said at the outset of this essay that getting the frogs of France to love the English limeys was an impossible task. I may have failed, but at least I tried.
E. E. CARR
December 24, 2007
Essay 280
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Kevin’s commentary: Do they French and the Irish have any history together, I wonder? You don’t hear too much about the Irish fighting anyone but the British. Perhaps this is because I took Asian history instead of European history in school, so consequently most of my knowledge of the history of the UK comes from Irish folk music. This music is invariably about war death, and the British are to blame for most of it.
Back on point, I’d agree that there’s definitely an amount of dismissiveness and even discrimination that impacts the elderly. Certainly, as Pop says, a lot of marketing is directed to young people these days. To that I’d say that Pop is just listening to the wrong channels. My girlfriend often watches a network called “HLN” which only has one show, which is called Mystery Detectives. It plays Mystery Detectives 24/7 and the only commercials it runs are for facelifts, medication and hip replacements. So there is certainly marketing for the elderly out there, if you know where to look. Secondly I’d question why Pop even wants to have to listen to commercials which could potentially apply to him — I happily dismiss any bit of marketing that I can identify as not being potentially useful to me. If nobody was trying to sell me things that I’m interested in, I could tune all advertisements out en-masse even more than I already do. I feel like that’d be wonderful.
As final thoughts, a) It is worth noting that elderly voters are one of the most valuable groups to politicians in America (old people vote), b) age-based discrimination is terrible, but for a job like the presidency, it might be a good screening. We got a Pope who was so old, the Catholics couldn’t hold midnight mass at midnight. God knows what the equivalent problem would be for an 80-year-old president, but it might be a doozy.
More on the Browning poem here: https://ezrasessays.com/?p=1371