“Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding?” (Job 12:12)
Everyone knows that our government is superb when comes to planning. Now there is this new statutory board called ‘Council for the Third Age’. Initially I couldn’t figure out what is it is about from its name alone until I saw its advertisement for its event, ‘Active Aging carnival, active living’ on the train. The baby-boomers are indeed going to be a huge financial burden for the country. The government is trying to mitigate the impact by postponing the retirement age. There are also more job advertisements recruiting health care staff to take care the medical needs of these folks.
Looking after aged people is seldom an admirable task. I can fully empathize with my youngest sister’s frustrations at times with my mum during those lengthy years that she had to take care of her. The failure rate for maids who take care of the aged is very high so much so that most employers would rather not to demand too much from their maids. At the shopping mall below my place, I often see maids hanging around with the wheel-chair bounded old-folks under their charge. Some of them even dressed smartly with make-ups, in contrast with those under their cares.
My recent short visit to a church-sponsored eldercare centre is an unforgettable experience. The place (HDB void deck) provides day-care services for the poor aged patients after they were discharged from the hospital. It is a bit too small a place given the number of patients the centre takes in. This is made worst by the fact that virtually all the old folks have to use walking frames to move about. We were there around afternoon tea time. A commotion broke out when patients started to find their ways to the tables for their tea breaks with walking frames got into the way of one another, as a result, grumblings and unkind words were murmured and the atmosphere became suddenly very tense. There were also squabbles among some of them when their favourite seats were ‘invaded’ by others.
I was saddened to witness such ugly scenes. Isn’t this place after all is not their permanent home? Why are they fighting over such trivial things? Their behaviours do not make sense to me but I guess when we are old, we will probably behave the same ways, stubborn and nagging over insignificant things in life. No wonder most people would rather do volunteer works at children homes than at places that housed the old folks.
May I add on to your perception of old people during your visit to eldercare? I believe that as we get older, we move back to our childhood and so we tend to behave like kids. As such we will not be much better than what we are in our adulthood. In addition, with age comes frailty, so we either get frustrated or depressed. I can imagine how the elderly felt when their walking frames got in the way of the other. It's the feeling of helplessness and the need to depend on others that could be the cause of their frustration. Thus while we are able to stand back and analyse their behaviour, on our part, we need to keep a open heart and a cheerful spirit as we move on in age and people will remember us for it. That's the meaning of growing old gracefully.
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