I think this is one of the saddest stories I have read in a long time. It is not about naturism or Steve Gough's campaign to be accepted in society nude. It is about the burden of caring that is increasingly the lot of our generation.
Whatever your opinion of Gough's behaviour and campaign, it is his own. A campaign by which he has chosen to live his life. His aspiration is nudity in society and however he goes about it was his choice to follow.
But his mum is in need and so like a huge swathe of our generation he has given up his quest and his freedom of choice in order to look after his mother. No choice really. Bless him, he has done what most of us do (certainly in my case) and sacrificed our independence to devote ourselves to our elderly dependents.
It is an example of the increasing burden that improved health and medical science has placed certainly on the current generation of fifty and sixty-somethings (i.e. Us!) that their parents and older relatives live ever longer past the point at which their lives are tolerably dignified, tolerably comfortable and, intolerably, their wits and faculties and useful limbs are taken from them by old age and infirmity, dementia, Alzheimer's, arthritis, heart dysfunction and a score of other things.
Yet medical science and social care keeps the sorry, spent, guttering flame of the elderly relative's existence burning wanly, sans everything, prolonged far and away beyond what should have been its natural span and they moulder in bedrooms and care homes, bland, living ghosts of people that were once active and meant something. Whilst that medical science continues to work its preservative and palliative 'miracles' the sad consequence is that families and loved ones of those helpless geriatrics are engaged in the immense burden of care and stress and worry and cost. The respected memory of their loved one morphs into the anger of toleration of a heavy burden which love cannot allow them to put down yet society (and science) will not give the geriatric or their loved one the option of voluntary euthanasia or any other 'way out'. And without that option, the end becomes a welcome relief and a release not, as it should have been, a sad, loving and reluctant departure.
Having cared for 3/4 parents and 2 avuncular relatives through the sad pointlessness of their last years, I feel very strongly at minimum for myself and my children. I want to be able to determine the day that I die and save my offspring the huge, dragging, long-lasting, life-stealing burden of care that I experienced. And if I leave it too late and sadly get to a state where I can't say or decide when to go then I want them to have the option and indeed the expectation that they can and will release me from the burden of the last dregs of life and for society to accept, assist and value this consideration for quality of life being the key criterion of continuation of life.
So many people I know have had or are having their freedom stolen by the shackles of geriatric care and so much resource is wasted in preserving human life 'at all costs'. So much political consideration is being given to how the countries of the west will manage the hugely increasing geriatric population and so little thought to how much of that resource could do so much good elsewhere employed if a more objective view of the value of life and taking a balanced view of when the end should be. And yet, when it comes up in parliament, the spineless members vote against alleviating the widespread and increasing suffering of people imprisoned in existence, possibly against their wills in many cases, by medical care. As was unsurprising the considerations centred on the minor risk that sometimes such decisions might not be made for the highest motives and the occasional experience of someone who changed their minds.
So Steve Gough, despite my respect for your right to make your point, you had my cynicism about your campaign tactics . But now, Steve, you have my heartfelt respect for having put your principles aside in the interests of filial duty and my deep sympathy for the fact that you have sadly had to do so and no longer have the freedom to pursue your vocation.
John
