The following are portions of the winning essay from Androscoggin County. It was written by Jonathan Rousseau of Leavitt Area High School.

Elder abuse is important to me because it goes against the morals that I have been raised with. I was always taught to be respectful to everyone and especially respectful and courteous to those who were older than me.

Elder abuse shows more than just the character of the person doing it — it shows the attitude of a generation that has a lack of respect and a lack of empathy for those who are older than them, who have seen more than them and yet still believe that they are better than them.

I didn’t have the privilege of knowing my grandparents on my mother’s side when I was young. My mother’s father had died when she was 17 and her mother died when I was very young. I remember visiting her in a nursing home and seeing what my mother always described as the last bit of her that was left. I would see her every Friday when my mother would bring me and my younger brother after school. I would sit beside her with my mother and listen to them talk and spend most of my time not understanding who, or what they were talking about. Aside from my goodbye hugs, that is the only relationship that I had with my grandmother before she passed.

I have another set of grandparents but that doesn’t mean that I don’t wish I had the opportunity to meet the people that raised my mother — the people who made her who she is.

The sad fact of elder abuse is that aside from people being inconsiderate, demanding and cruel, they take advantage of the people who took care of them. I think that it is the duty of children to care for their parents in the best way that they can, or put them in the hands of caregivers who can be trusted.

When people neglect their parents, they show them that they do not appreciate all of their efforts and are not willing to do what their parents did for them.

After the love and care that it takes to care for a child, we should treat our elders with the same amount, if not more, especially because they are reaching the end of their time here.

Some of those people have made amazing sacrifices for this country, and for us. My father’s father is a Vietnam veteran and put aside his life to be there for this country when we needed it. That sacrifice, in itself, is enough to demand the respect of me, and my father, and the rest of those who should ever come to meet him.

I love the grandparents that I have, but I wish that I had spent time with the ones that I didn’t have a chance to love.

I think that more people should take steps to ensure the emotional and physical safety of their elders.