Visited an 'ol friend in an old people's home last week who will be turning 80 in January. We entered from the main reception area on the ground floor where a receptionist let us in and we were asked to sign in. Then he accompanied us to the first floor in the elevators which could only be operated with a key. The first floor is where you might say the mentally and emotionally challenging members were accommodated. I had gone to visit this friend in the same place early last year as well. At that time she had been walking with the aid of a walking stick but in my recent visit she had visibly shrunken in the one year I had been away and looked very weak and frail, her hair also seemed to hang about her face wistfully. As we came out of the elevator the air was laden with the smell of urine. In the beginning you try to hold your breath for as long as you can and of course you realize that that is no solution so you hope that after some time you would get used to it but for as long as I was there, almost an hour and a half, I could not get used to it.
As we came out of the elevator we stepped into a long corridor and three doors down we entered into a great big hall, fully carpeted with high backed sofas. Quite plush in first appearance. At the end of the hall, which had a number of big windows opening into the car park, there was a dinning area with small tables and chairs. As we stepped into the great hall, I looked around for my friend and was dismayed to see her in a wheelchair. She was trying her hand at a piano, set up against a wall. On this visit I was also accompanied by my sister and another of our friends. This friend was closer in age to the friend we were visiting. We went up to her and said hello. She did not recognize us right away but seemed so happy that someone had come to visit her.
We selected a dinning table and sat around it. She started the painstaking process of remembering us but irrespective she kept holding my hand, as I was sitting closest to her, and kissing it and telling me how much she loved me. During this time another resident came and sat down at our table, she seemed very upset and kept saying 'I just want to die', 'I am tired, I am going to put my head down now', then she would start crying. It was heartbreaking to see her condition. She seemed so restless. She kept pacing up and down the hall, she would sit with us for a minute and then muttering these words to herself would abruptly leave. At last I held her hand gently and asked her to stay with us. We kept asking her questions and were able to find out that she had been a teacher. Then, suddenly, she got up and just dropped herself on the floor and started crying uncontrollably. At this point an assistant came and started soothing her and took her away to her room...
Our friend is a widower but has two daughters who are married and have children and has a beautiful house that she used to live in two years ago. She used to make lace and had made an exquisite lace handkerchief for me for my wedding. She had many creative interests before she came to this place which had seeped all energy from her. We were able to deduce that her daughters hardly visited her and though she kept saying how she hated that place and was going to move back into her own house or move in with her daughters, we knew it was not going to be...
Is this how we will treat our elderly? Leaving them to count their days until they die in a mirthless, soulless place. Where medicines keep them alive but caged in an artificial environment like that they lose all will to live. It is quite understandable that looking after the elderly is very tough. It is not true that they are like babies, they are like them in their frailty but they come with so much baggage accumulated over their long lives, and not all always good. Physically they shrink in size, their speech changes, they become hard of hearing, their limbs become weak and need support but their mind and soul has the same vigor. Our eyes should see beyond the physicality and give them an environment where they can live a productive life. This stage in their life asks for generosity and forgiveness from us. It asks for a little more than just keeping them alive, it calls for 'quality' in spending the time they have left in this world. No matter how much one might have achieved in life without depending on others, old age requires dependance on family. We owe it to our elderly to take care of them. This is the responsibility of families. Responsibility not just of men to take care of their parents but also of women to take care of their parents. No one deserves to die having extinguished the 'spark' that God has given us before our days are done!
We selected a dinning table and sat around it. She started the painstaking process of remembering us but irrespective she kept holding my hand, as I was sitting closest to her, and kissing it and telling me how much she loved me. During this time another resident came and sat down at our table, she seemed very upset and kept saying 'I just want to die', 'I am tired, I am going to put my head down now', then she would start crying. It was heartbreaking to see her condition. She seemed so restless. She kept pacing up and down the hall, she would sit with us for a minute and then muttering these words to herself would abruptly leave. At last I held her hand gently and asked her to stay with us. We kept asking her questions and were able to find out that she had been a teacher. Then, suddenly, she got up and just dropped herself on the floor and started crying uncontrollably. At this point an assistant came and started soothing her and took her away to her room...
Our friend is a widower but has two daughters who are married and have children and has a beautiful house that she used to live in two years ago. She used to make lace and had made an exquisite lace handkerchief for me for my wedding. She had many creative interests before she came to this place which had seeped all energy from her. We were able to deduce that her daughters hardly visited her and though she kept saying how she hated that place and was going to move back into her own house or move in with her daughters, we knew it was not going to be...
Is this how we will treat our elderly? Leaving them to count their days until they die in a mirthless, soulless place. Where medicines keep them alive but caged in an artificial environment like that they lose all will to live. It is quite understandable that looking after the elderly is very tough. It is not true that they are like babies, they are like them in their frailty but they come with so much baggage accumulated over their long lives, and not all always good. Physically they shrink in size, their speech changes, they become hard of hearing, their limbs become weak and need support but their mind and soul has the same vigor. Our eyes should see beyond the physicality and give them an environment where they can live a productive life. This stage in their life asks for generosity and forgiveness from us. It asks for a little more than just keeping them alive, it calls for 'quality' in spending the time they have left in this world. No matter how much one might have achieved in life without depending on others, old age requires dependance on family. We owe it to our elderly to take care of them. This is the responsibility of families. Responsibility not just of men to take care of their parents but also of women to take care of their parents. No one deserves to die having extinguished the 'spark' that God has given us before our days are done!
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