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The ‘Wallets-Over-Hearts’ Mentality: Leads to A World of Heartache
Watching people keep my ailing father sick, despite professional advice, proved a global greed pandemic—trumps COVID-19.
Since publishing a few stories in recent years about the mistreatment and seclusion of autistic children in the U.K., people have often asked me, “why did you take such an interest in helping autistic children?” My answer: empathy.
I could understand what it was like for these parents, notably one named Jeremy, basking in uncertainty, separated from his child who has been living in terror and darkness. The seclusion is simply the crude actions of people concerned with fattening their wallets while living aloof to the notion they’re draining someone else’s heart.
Understanding began about four years ago, when my father, suffering from alcoholism, was only getting worse. However, on a spring day in 2016, a few of his key employees contacted me, seeking to learn more about how to “properly respond to his behavior.”
Hope! I thought.
One of them was Chad Craddock, 62, of Ardmore, OK. Craddock began working for my father, as a fence-builder, as a teen in the 70s. After college, Chad joined the family business and became my father’s trusted…
