Nobody expected it to be easy for the Muscular Dystrophy Association to part ways with Jerry Lewis, who gave everything he had to building the organization over nearly six decades. Now 85, Lewis, a famously difficult talent with an outsize ego even by show-business standards, was bound to insist that he be allowed to all but drop dead at his post, mid-Labor Day telethon. In recent years, that seemed a real possibility, as Jerry’s health and age made him more a figure of pity and curiosity than a viable host.

Nonetheless, Jerry Lewis has raised, by the MDA’s own calculations, about $2,5 billion dollars, beginning when Eisenhower was president and TV was a novelty. The organization owes him, well, everything. They certainly owed him the opportunity to exit on his own terms, even if it was too late, even if it was self-indulgent on his part, and even if, though this is highly unlikely, it cost the organization more in lost contributions than kicking him to the curb will. The sequence of events makes it clear, though no official account has come from either the MDA or Lewis, that negotiations broke down over whether Jerry Lewis would make this telethon his last, and what his role would be at the end.  The MDA decided to end the drama by pulling the plug. He was dumped from the telethon.

I’m sympathetic. I understand. Lewis, as I noted in an earlier post, was wrong not to know when to leave in the best interests of the organization. Nevertheless, there are debts that must be repaid, and a level of accumulated gratitude that almost no subsequent conduct by the recipient of an individual’s good will and service can erase. I won’t speculate on what that level may be except to say that the Muscular Dystrophy Association passed it with Jerry Lewis long ago.

Lewis may be old, sick and a shadow of himself, he may be a relic that no longer has the drawing power he once did, he may be a royal pain in the ass and he may have become a liability. But just as no ethical and feeling adult child refuses to have an aged parent preside over Thanksgiving dinner because he makes embarrassing comments, forgets his grandchildren’s name and is continuously flatulent, the MDA should not have sent Jerry Lewis away until he wanted to go. “To be told just thanks, good-bye, is the ultimate in humiliation,” Harry Schearer, one of many Hollywood comics who are outraged over Lewis’s treatment, told CBS.

Even if Jerry was partially or entirely at fault, it doesn’t matter. The MDA owes a huge debt to Jerry Lewis, and doing anything to hurt him or harm him in any way is rank ingratitude. The lesson is an old one: don’t allow someone to become essential to your very existence if you are not willing to grant whatever demand, favor or task he might ask in return. The Godfather might ask you to show your gratitude by whacking a rival don; the Devil will surely want your soul. All Jerry Lewis wanted was to stick around until he decided it was time to go.

After 2.5 billion dollars and a lifetime of devotion, the MDA should have let him.