John's absence from Jim's side: an explanation.....

It seems obvious that right from when Jim had his first stroke that the only character not really affected by it was John. Even Elizabeth, who can scarcely be bothered to think of anyone beside herself, was moved by it. Not moved enough to not give away his harmonica or visit him much, mind you, but it did disturb her enough to realize that it could divide the family. That might be what she'd tell herself when she was trying to explain why she gave the harmonica away, that the family couldn't afford to be distracted by a side issue. That, parentheticaly, would be a great suggestion to hand into Coffee Talk. John's sang-froid is somewhat difficult to explain. I've only seen him visit Jim the once and that was with Elly in tow. Otherwise, he can't get away fast enough. The reason seems obvious enough when you consider that he doesn't go to visit his own parents all that often; he doesn't like hanging around old people because he doesn't want to remind himself that he's old, too. He can rag on Doctor Ted being a pathetic old fool chasing after women for hours but he, you see, is middle aged. It doesn't matter to him that he's damned near retired, that he has two grandkids now and will have a bunch more now that Liz and Anthony have finally settled down and that he's older than most of his youngest child's parents. He. Is. Not. Old. Being old, you see, is what Jim is because he is sick and weak. Iris is old because she has nothing much left to live for. It matters not that both people called him on being on the fast track to Geezer City because he belives things that their parents rejected as being archaic, since he feels good about himself, he's still fairly young.