It is sad to get old….
Last week my wife and I went to visit an old friend.
Since her husband passed away a few years ago, this lady has been living alone in the small house in which they had spent their more than 50 years of marriage. It was the same house where they had brought up their three children and then shared as an empty nest for 15 years before he died at the age of 81 a few years ago.
Their three children have all done well – so well in fact that they are all living abroad, two in Australia and one in Singapore. The families come back at least once a year to visit her, and she gets to talk quite often on Facetime, WhatsApp and even as a group on Zoom to the daughters, the grandchildren and even the sons- in-law (one Sinhalese, one Tamil and one Australian, all of whom she fondly looks on as her ‘sons’). She is now quite au fait with this modern technology of talking to computer screens and phone screens – but it is not the same, she confided, as having the children around to talk to face to face.
Fortunately, someone who first came to stay with her to help as an ayah when her youngest child was a toddler is still with her after all these years. Asilin, just ten years younger than our friend, is now looked on not as a servant or a member of the domestic staff but as a valued companion.
So our eighty-year-old friend and her seventy-year-old companion, both of whom we ourselves have known for many years, were happy to see us. We spent a pleasant morning in their company, reminiscing about the old days. Needless to say, we were plied with cadju and vadai made by Asilin and fresh cups of tea (with just the correct amount of condensed milk) prepared by our friend.
“You know,” she observed as we sat sipping our tea, “it is certainly sad to get old. We have to accept that getting old is inevitable, and there is nothing we can do about it. But HOW we grow old is something that we can control – unless of course we are stricken by an illness. This is probably the most important thing I have learned.”
We could certainly agree and empathise with her. When you reach the age of 80, you realise that, if you are lucky, you only have a decade or so of reasonably good life left. Your body which has kept you in good health all these years is approaching its use by date. Even if major afflictions like heart attacks and strokes don’t hit you, you can feel the gradual decline of your body’s working parts. The hearing and eyesight are not as good as they used to be, there are aches and pains in various joints and muscles so that getting up after sitting takes more effort than it did in the past, and the memory doesn’t function as well as it used to do.
Our friend we noticed has been aging gracefully – in fact she has been quietly resisting giving in to the infirmities of old age. Between her and Asilin they prepare the meals that they require (and this includes frying cadju nuts and vadais to perfection!). The two of them go for a walk on most days – more a leisurely stroll around the neighbourhood rather than a brisk “get the heart pumping” walk, but it is enough to get them out in the fresh air and sunshine, get the joints and muscles moving, and give them the opportunity to stop and have a chat with the neighbours they meet along the way.
Our friend gave up driving and sold the car after her husband died, but she has a regular Trishaw driver whom she can call on to take her to do her marketing and on other trips.
And she makes it a point to keep in touch with other people. The regular Facetime conversations that she has with the grandchildren – who still have time to talk to their aachi/granny at least once a week – are events to which she looks forward. Of course, she is quite used to the regular advice and instructions that she gets from her three daughters, to which she and Asilin diplomatically listen, acquiesce – and then continue preparing food as they have always been doing.
“What my daughters do not appreciate, Sanjiva,” she smiled, glancing at the box of chocolates that my wife and I had brought her, “is that at my age, whether I eat one chocolate a day or three is not really going to give me diabetes!”
I would certainly agree with her.
Searching for an ideal partner? Find your soul mate on Hitad.lk, Sri Lanka's favourite marriage proposals page. With Hitad.lk matrimonial advertisements you have access to thousands of ads from potential suitors who are looking for someone just like you.