Reflection Journal on visiting old homes in this
March, 2013
Thanks to DP course, within the last three weeks until
yesterday, I have visited three old homes; I have never had such
experience in my life in close contact and sharing with a group of people that
the society might overlook.
The most favorite, interesting part was to talk with the
elderly. I
approached about 8 old people and all of them shared about their life present
and past with me. Among them, some were over 90 upto 103 and most of them were
over 80 and the youngest one was at 50s, some were
super positive, optimistic, some were rather depressed and looked in dismay.
All talks gave me a sense of heart stirring and compel me
to think why positive thinking is a cure to many diseases and how to stay
young, grateful and happy...
The 94 years old lady in the 上水乐天old home was a blessing to me: she has some thing in common with me: we all like eating fruit and vegetable. To satisfy her own obsession for fruit, she often travels to downtown by bus and by train to select her favorite items and back by taxi.
She shared her teeth dropping without any
complaining mood but smiling: it was so surprising to see their loose one by
one without pain and without notice. Hahaha…What a happy grandma.
Her story reminded me aging is not an issue if
we choose to accept it, and adapt to the change. To
something we cannot control, we still have choice to stay happy or sad. Life is
a matter of choice.
One the 80s
in the 东华三院old
home shared her childhood life in Singapore and sang songs to me for
several minutes –the name of the song was 三民主义万岁.She told me she was crazy for
singing when she was young and even now she sings whenever the chance has. She
had collected some paper of lyrics with big Chinese characters and
showed me she like 邓丽君songs and 友谊之歌. In the visit, she asked for singing twice and we all liked to
sing with her.
The singer who sang to me lovely
Her story told me happiness is a habit and
character and a state of mind. To stay happy at old age, we need to learn stay
happy from our young age and now.
An old man suffering from stroke in a Causeway old home was heavily smoking alone at the balcony. I tried to talk with him but he preferred to be alone, just asking me help him moving to the ash tray closer. I did for him. Then I was told his son was a rotten gambler, his family was broken by him and the old man has to disappear from him… Sad story.
His story showed some elderly have lost family
caring for a long time and they are the most needed group to be looked after by
the society.
I found
families’ caring and loving is
the most important source to their happiness.
Another reminder is to pay attention
to Alzheimer's disease. It is not only old men's issue any longer.
Another impressive interview was a gentleman at his 70s at 东华三院. He was an outspoken guy to the authority of the Home to some extent but his tonality was towards problem solving with solutions. I liked his attitude because he was not only concerning his own name but the benefit as a whole.
The most learning from him was he was grateful
for the medical services he got and feels settled and content to be staying at
the Home.
He son and the son’s girlfriend just visited him.
What he told them was he was fine and asked them not to be there long.
"Go out to enjoy your love and yourselves." What a great father he
was! This might be a kind of unconditional love.
The last old lady I talked together with my classmate Rosa at 乐天who impressed me specially was at her 70-80s with depression. She kept asking us to call an ambulance to send her to hospital to cut her legs. For what? To stop internal bleeding and pain. The staff told us she just went to the emergency without finding serious problem. This might be a kind of early psychosis.
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%80%9D%E8%A6%BA%E5%A4%B1%E8%AA%BF
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In the final discussion period, one
of our classmates shared her findings: A lady sleeping at bed was found my
classmate’s hand so cold, suggesting my classmate to close her warmer
body.
Life influences life no matter how minor our action
looks.
1. Attitude of facing acing aging, diseases and death:
This attitude can affect our health seriously. If we have much
fear at these normal courses of life, we will live in worry for tomorrow. We cannot live fully
for today. A waste of life indeed!
2. Life can be very vulnerable and unbelievably resilient and strong
The people at their supper high age usually are those with fewer complaints,
with more cheer,
gratitude and
optimistic outlook to life. To them, life is a gift everyday matter how good or bad, raining
or sunny.
This may be the key to be strong physically and psychologically.
3. For old people, living with families are the best thing but to people with happiness state of mind, no matter living at home or at the old homes, their happiness state and emotion will not be affected by environment too much.
4. Old people always long to be heard. Listening to
them and let them feel useful and find a sense of value inside of their heart
is one of my visions to carry on.
5. To take care of our own emotion and health and
beloved ones’ is the most important thing to me any time in my life.
Thanks to our DP classmates, we have a nice memory about the visit at Lei Tian old home:
https://picasaweb.google.com/105145037736058645351/13132013?authkey=Gv1sRgCPPovOj92vOCNQ&feat=email#
1-4-2013
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