One of my clients has had a major life tragedy.
He is a lovely man who used to be a boxer and now loves his garden but has slid into his elderly years with many health issues. The latest one being Osteomyelitis which is a serious bone condition in his leg. He always has a smile and a joke when I visit him…you know – one of those friendly men who have many friends and are always very welcoming.
He is looked after by his loving (and patient) wife and has a lovely wippet dog called Wally.
What to do when the medical world has told him there’s nothing they can do for him, just take more of these pills and we’ll see you next month. It has been a whirlwind of non productive and hopeless appointments for him with no hope of relief from the pain.
As a younger person I know that all things are fixable, pain can be eased with not much fuss and I have much to live for still relishing the challenges that are thrown at me (sometimes with a little too much wild abandon – thanks). To add to his angst and to hammer home his mortality and awareness that the pain just won’t go and no one can help him…Wally died last week.
When I went to see him today his lovely wife said he was asleep and has pretty much stopped trying. It’s the last straw, of all the dogs they have had and lost, Wally was the last, never to be replaced. How much heartbreak can a man endure before giving up. Lost his health, sometimes his mind, his favourite food makes him ill, his hearing ahs gone and now Wally.
Is this what we are ultimately brought to in this life? Abandoned, forgotten, ignored and basically discarded as a non profit situation? Profit comes in many ways… It’s forgotten that the benefits that we receive from being in touch with these people are limitless, the gifts bestowed upon us are enormous and the compassion and time we give freely to them are unquantifiable to them and to us. We live in such a sterile “beautiful” world with wonderful feats of engineering, pretentious plastic people, photoshopped beauties, fast cars, huge salaries, media indoctrination, ridiculous expectations, amazing technology to name a few of the incredible opportunities we have….and maybe thats the problem.
Old people aren’t seen as an opportunity by our culture.
Since my nursing days I have relished the stories from the oldies (said with love), the reminiscences and ramblings, the photos of their youth, the joy they find at sharing their memories. These people deserve to be the “elders” of our society who we learn from and provide for with enthusiasm and joy, not abandoned and told “there’s nothing to be done to help you, see you next week”.
Luckily I don’t consider myself to be part of the norm….I’ll be over there later this for a cuppa and a chat. Its a privilege to a part of their lives with their wisdom, their pain, their joy and their resilience.