Reader ashamed for not speaking up about taunts toward elderly friend
A reader says she watched a close friend in her early 80s endure mean-spirited comments about her hearing and memory from family members and is ashamed she didn’t intervene.
DEAR ABBY: I spent the morning at a close friend’s home. She is in her early 80s and starting to show some mental decline and memory problems. Her children are in their 30s and still live at home. Her husband is also in his 80s.
While there, I noticed how, at every opportunity, the kids or husband would make some “innocent” remark about her hearing or mental alertness. It didn’t take long for me to notice how these remarks went from harmless teasing to mean-spirited. I could see by my friend’s expression that some of their remarks had hit the mark and hurt her feelings. She either played along with it or pretended she didn’t hear it.