Elder Advice was reminded of Uncle Guido the other day. Not his own Uncle Guido - who suffers from the serious disability of not existing. Rather, the Uncle Guido of a large Italian family in West Toronto. A very, very popular elderly man who passed away suddenly one winter day a number of years ago. His family was devastated. Because Uncle Guido was, as I have said, quite popular.
The funeral was a predictably sombre affair, but restrained compared to events at the graveside where grief stricken relatives suffered a paroxysm of weeping and some literally threw themselves on the coffin. That feat was made easier by the fact that the grave was not even close to the requisite 6 feet under. That embarrassment for the cemetery was caused by Cecil and Haywood, two indolent Newfoundland gravediggers who decided the frozen earth was too much of a challenge and had barely excavated 3 feet before dropping tools for the day and leaving the coffin lid significantly above ground level. A carpet of artificial grass was hastily arranged in a clumsy effort to disguise the inexcusable.
After Uncle Guido’s anguished family departed, Cecil and Haywood were called on the same carpet and sternly instructed to finish the job properly. The plot then thickened, in more ways than one. From a subsequent investigation and a modest amount of conjecture, it was determined that Cecil and Haywood, stinging from the cemetery operator’s rebuke, decided they had options that bitter cold day. Rather than going to all the trouble of removing the coffin, digging another meter or so, and then laboriously replacing Guido’s casket in its last resting place, they spied a small backhoe used by the cemetery for internal road work. Inexpertly employing the bucket on the end of the backhoe’s articulating arm, they repeatedly smashed the coffin lid until it was slightly below ground level, then covered their handiwork with a thin layer of soil, collected their pay and called it a day. Neither was seen or heard from again.
None of this would ever have come to light had Uncle Guido not been so popular. Something Elder Advice has mentioned before. Each Sunday, after Mass, Uncle Guido’s large family dutifully made the pilgrimage to the cemetery to lament his passing. The ritual had continued for more than a year when, one bright spring Sunday, as the whole extended family mourned at Uncle Guido’s grave, the ground shifted, and up popped a decomposing, skeletal hand.
Now Uncle Guido’s family undoubtedly wanted him back. But apparently not that way. Women fainted. Children were terrified. Lawsuits ensued. Which, of course, is how Elder Advice learned about the whole affair.
I may have remarked previously on Uncle Guido’s popularity. Through the legal proceedings, Elder Advice became aware that young people especially liked him. He encouraged them to both give and take. To give generously, their time and a damn about the world beyond the end of their noses. To take risks, advice and the long view. And they all thought he genuinely cared more about their welfare than he did about his own.
Although apparently not enough to believe he was reaching out from the grave, to lend them a hand.
Anyway, Uncle Guido came to mind last week as Elder Advice stumbled on the 2024 World Happiness Report. For some unknown reason there are people who consider it necessary to assemble data annually on how ecstatic the Finns and Danes are and why they refuse to accept, like the rest of us, that we live in a godless, empty, hostile and ultimately meaningless universe. This year, the researchers of the Report chose, for the first time, to focus on the happiness of people at different stages of life and disturbingly discovered that, in the United States and Canada, rankings for those aged 60 and older are 50 or more places higher than for those under 30. Case in point: Canadians aged 60+ placed Canada 8th in happiness based on assessment of their own lives; Canadians under 30 placed it 58th.
Now Elder Advice will concede that some of this youthful despondency may be the result of the geopolitical chaos over which we have little or no control. But most of it, in Elder Advice’s chronically correct opinion, is the result of things we do. Two of many examples: mismanaging the economy so that housing costs require almost 50% of their income and, as this week’s mindless federal budget demonstrated, supporting objectively bad governments that engage in shameless vote buying, profligate spending and wealth redistribution through taxation rather than wealth creation through sound policy. And in continually kicking the can of consequences down the fiscal road to be paid for by our children and grandchildren. It is frankly a miracle those under 30 have not already lined up the tumbrils for us.
Elder Advice makes the charitable assumption that, like him, you do not want your children and grandchildren spitting on your grave.
Elder Advice? The goal should be to cause happiness wherever you go. As opposed to whenever. So, before the young finally wrest control from us and start the debate on culling the human herd of undesirables, we all need to take a page out of Uncle Guido’s book. Especially the one about genuinely caring more about their welfare than we do about our own. Time is short: those young people scowling as you pass them by are not just criticizing your terrible fashion sense.
Enjoyed the story, the writing style and the message. A trifecta.