Among the most heart-rending prayers in Jewish liturgy is the Avinu Malkeinu. (Our Father, Our Sovereign), a poignant, plaintive pleading – thousands of years old – of a series of deeply personal entreaties recited at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It is one of the central prayers of the High Holidays.
Within the Avinu Malkeinu, perhaps the most compelling entreaties, especially for those of us no longer in our youth, are the two that convey the hope that we retain our dignity in our later years:
“Al tashlichenu l’eyt ziknah;
Kichlot kochaynu al t’azveinu.”
(Do not cast us aside in our old age;
When our strength fails us, do not abandon us.)
These two petitions, at the very heart of the High Holiday prayers, have become the emotional rallying point for the obligations of the younger generation toward our elders. Wherever Jews travelled and settled throughout the long, wandering years of our existence, we always established a moshav zekainim, an “old folks home,” a senior citizens residence, among the first of our communal institutions.
More than an emotional rallying point, however, the words of the prayer have been viewed as a moral imperative for the community, betokening that deeply embedded into our psyches and our values are care and concern for the physical well-being and emotional dignity of our elderly.
It is in this context that Dr. Michael Gordon has opened tall windows of insight into the rarely viewed world of the geriatric care specialist with his recently published autobiography, Brooklyn Beginnings: A Geriatrician’s Odyssey, (iUniverse, Inc., New York, Bloomington, 2009).
Gordon, a columnist with The CJN, was the first Canadian to receive a certificate in geriatric medicine. He has a gift for storytelling and a keen sense of recall for the myriad details of the formative and playful moments of his private life and of the medically profound moments of a pioneering, robust career in the medical care of the elderly.
His pre-geriatric medical years take him – and the reader – to Scotland, where he first studied medicine, and then to Europe and Israel, where he refined his medical training, and ultimately, to Canada, where he settled into his life’s work.
The cases he recounts are more than episodes in a doctor’s agenda or experiences in a hospital ward. They are paradigms of medical/forensic investigation. They are lessons about life. Perhaps most tellingly, they are insights into the ultimate issues that we all face.
Gordon combines unabashed details of personal anecdotes with similarly unvarnished recollections of professional responsibilities and duties.
His honesty is as disarming as it is effective. At times, he laments the medical community’s lack of empathy or understanding toward geriatric care. “Over the years, many of my medical colleagues have questioned how I am able to look after patients who are old, have many illnesses and may be quite demented. ‘How can you speak to them with any real satisfaction?’ I am often asked. I have frequently heard from medical trainees that some of their supervisors paint a rather negative picture of eldercare. I am saddened by this.”
He describes with particular glee the happiness he felt when he accepted a joint appointment in Toronto at Mount Sinai Hospital and at the Baycrest Centre for Geriatric Care, where he has practised for decades. Gordon is currently medical program director of palliative care at Baycrest.
“With the establishment of the specialty of geriatric medicine at the Royal College in 1981 – and my receipt of its first certificate – there was no turning back. For the next 30 years, the practice of geriatric medicine became my passion, providing me with both inspiration and professional satisfaction throughout my medical career at the two organizations, both of which were affiliated with the University of Toronto.”
Gordon’s candour is his signature. “These latter years of my career… have helped me to become increasingly aware of just how much family and staff members alike struggle with the challenge of doing the right thing for those we care for. Professionals and family members share in a very difficult decision-making process. Those of us who are the professionals know, or may have already experienced in our own lives, what it is like to be on the other side of the bed as a family member. Having experienced both sides of the situation has certainly helped me to appreciate the enormous challenges, tenderness, poignancy and trepidation that we all face in these most difficult life-ending and life-defining situations.”
He is never reluctant to write what, in the end, must be written: “I feel humbled and privileged to have played a part in the many life-defining moments of so many people and their families. They looked to me for care and advice and – from time to time – wisdom. And while wisdom may be most desired when a family is making such difficult decisions, in all humility, I recognize that it is the hardest attribute to come by.”
Gordon has dedicated his professional life and done his utmost to ensure that the prayers we utter during the vulnerable moments of our lives, such as at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, on our own behalf or on behalf of those we love, are not merely sharp-edged cries in the night or in synagogue.
It is due, in large measure, to individuals such as Michael Gordon that our parents and our grandparents are not cast aside in their old age.