Boo boo in select company

Boo boo in select company
Something to say?

Saturday 16 January 2021

Old, Older, Oldest

 OLD, OLDER, OLDEST

If I remember right, Atul Gawande's 'Being Mortal,' was about age, and also about dealing with the old. It is one of the best books I have read about the condition of OLD, but also about how to manage being old with dignity and compassion.

Twenty years ago, old-age homes were rare things in India. We look after our old at home, I used to say proudly, when yet another retirement institution sprang up around the corner from where I live in Croydon. Now there is one within calling distance and a few more within walking distance.Now, in India, they proliferate even in small towns, the new normal for that ageing uncle or recalcitrant father-in-law. I look into the lighted rooms of the 'homes' as I pass the institutions ( because that is what they are) and wonder whether that lady sitting at the window, or that other one with a uniformed nurse in front of her, are there because they want to be there. Or are they like that old jalopy you see discarded in the parking lots where cars go to die?

There are other options, I keep telling myself. In Kochi a group of us decided we were going to live in a communal oldies' house, just a few close friends. In Kochi you could get help to live like that, but in England it is a lot harder and more expensive. But, surely, packing them away out of sight in care-homes is a form of abandonment, I think.

I have dealt with the humiliations, the loss of control in two other blogs. (Older by the Day , 2016; and Being Old, 2015,) That was another age (no pun intended) ago and the frustrations have multiplied.  Little ailments linger, joints get stiffer, the senses -- hearing, sight, smell -- become inefficient, suspect. I would like to go for a long walk sometimes, to get my thinking gear oiled, but even a short walk requires a stick, and uphill is an effort.

I would love to get into a plane on impulse as I often did, and travel to South Africa, Norway,  India or Germany to see the friends who make me laugh, and in whose companionship I am secure. Not a hope. My last trip was a disaster and I took a week to recover from the stress and strain. Every escalator was a challenge and every wheelchair nurse an abomination.

I constantly wonder how I am curtailing the life of my children, with whom I live. Gawande's solutions are worth considering.

I would want to spend two days in a fortnight away from my family to give them a break, or even consider living with a group of friends of about similar age some of the time. I am still considering the options.