See The Aged

So, earlier than normal the next morning, I got onto my bike and left home to head to the kindergarten and, with the help of a staff member, to extricate the entire spiders nest from the wintry rose bush for my morning talk. I was excited. It was a brisk morning. The sun shining brightly, but coolly, as it did in the winter days of New Zealand’s South Island. And living towards the bottom of the island, well below the 45 degrees south latitude, it could be very cool. I rode down the street, past the large, low brick building opposite the metal work sheds. It was a nursing home, where my mother had worked occasionally. I was young, but it always amazed me how, no matter what time I rode past, early morning or afternoon, summer or winter, I would always see the old people sat by the large windows. Often, very early. Some times they seemed to be sat there all day. Staring out at the world. Watching the world they may have once been a part of pass by. During the few years I travelled the road up and down the valley, some of the faces seemed to be the same, occasionally there was a new one, often, some were not there any longer. I was young. I never considered they may have been lonely, suffering or scared. Of those faces I saw sitting at the window over the few years we lived in the valley, very few were particularly animated. I recall my mother saying after working there, how the ‘residents’ were sat by the window, so the cleaning staff could do their rooms without the oldies being in the way. Sometimes I would wave a friendly wave as I zipped by on the bike. Occasionally one or other would wave back. But often they just sat staring out.

It was called a nursing home, but it was, of course, an‘old folks’ ‘retirement’ home (don’t you love the terms we use?). Though even calling it a ‘retirement home’, was being generous. Strange how many of the ways we use to describe such a facility are polite, socially acceptable methods. Yet isn’t it strange how we twist the language we use to satisfy our consciousness. Not our reality. We call the places where trains pass through stations. But generally, everything is moving. Where planes fly from, terminals, but they don’t terminate. Your part of the trip may, but the planes generally do not. They come, they go, they land, they take off. They don’t actually terminate there. In truth these retirement homes are places where people end up. End their lives. ‘Retirement homes’? In such cases, if we were being honest, they should be labelled as ‘terminal’ shelters. Very seldom, would any of the residents ever just leave the ‘home’. They come there to fade away. I never considered it then. I was young and age was something that happened to others. Like to those who were over twenty. Yes, That old.

(Continued tomorrow)