Observing the nature and places I have been in my life where I encountered a lot of elders that makes me more thinks of the possibilities what if I become one of them? What would happen to me if I grow old? what happened to us if our hair becomes white instead of black?
When you go to an Asian country, one thing you will notice when visiting markets and vendor side is that lot of elders are working or doing the arrangement of their good in their spot for establishments.
I ask elders as part of the interview during our field activity when I was still in college why they still working even their age wasn't that applicable of doing the job, some of them are still doing the hand of young works and others still carrying a huge and large bag of load. They just smile and says they don't want to be a burden.
Burden? I ask, again he smiled but don't see any bitterness at his teeth. Some people could either make their family proud and some think they are a burden. This is another pain from reality, only those educated and rich could be retired while those lay laying individual in the society remains to work hard even in the age where they must already retire.
Elders are precious not to be detained.
One of the best Filipino cultures is that people respect and care for their elders where some countries think of elders as burdens when they cant be productive and helpful either in the family or in the industry.
In the place where I stay, I oftentimes see a lot of elders who are working and passing by with a load of exchangeable items to sell. I also seen old men still working hard in the middle of the sun with their buffalo (carabao) from planting to harvesting. If you will ask the reason why they do that? "Calabaw lang ang tumatanda" or translated as "Only the Buffalo could grow old" never think they are too old for the field job they work for.
Comes the bitterness of reality, some elders are detained in a confinement. Those elders who don't have a family to take care of or have family who has no time to care. they confine the elders in the four-sided wall where they could meet their co elders every day and every night.
Are they deserve those kinds of attention? well, the reality could be hurt sometimes that not all parent gives loved and care to their children.
The elderly are left on the mountain.
One of the unforgettable stories I heard is the "The Ballad of Narayama". I was in Elementary I think I was in grade four when I heard the story of Japanese who send their elders in the mountain to starve. I remember the story is also streaming the Netflix, you could catch the movie, but I heard wasn't the movie but the written story of the book the movie had based on.
The son loved his mother too much that even his wife hates her mother-in-law for being old and just a burden of the family he still insisted to put his mother in the middle of the forest and stays there forever that makes the wife and husband quarrel every day.
But that is village law and tradition so his mother should obey, but his mother is weak and fragile, her feet are weak especially in long walked. He decided to carry him on the trail but the problem is that no one had come back if they enter the forest that's is the worry of his mother.
At the end of the story, the mother revealed everything the reason for her injured feet was because she protects him when he's a child, and another secret she admitted is that she makes a way for his son to come back to the village when he carries the old woman she also cut the twigs of trees she can handle to chop so he may know the way back home.
When I grow old, I don't want to retire.
I tell you honestly, I'm afraid of getting old. I was afraid that one day comes and I will face retirement. Well, there is a benefit of retiring and applying to be verified as a senior citizen. But the idea of being old with nothing left in the savings, no financial stability, and security makes me worry more not for myself but for my family in the future.
Seeing those elders coping and still fighting every day for their food or allowance makes me more eager to work and dream more for my parents, so I won't see them in that situation where they think being old is being a burden on the family. I am not that perfect child but I won't let that happened to them.
I found this topic face of interest this day for maybe tells you not to be feared of getting old but to think the possibilities to happened when we were old, and face the retirement, tell me more thing I don't know and you knew about this topic.
When did Nescafe Classic Coffee ask for whom we get woke-ups? for me I woke up to plan my future, how about you?
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We had a conversation with a friend about this. She asked her daughter what will she will do if the time comes that she is old. Mind you that this kid loves taking care of her grandma, my friend's mother who lives with them. Her kid said that she, my friend, will have other people taking care of her. Kind of sad and hurtful to hear but I think that's the way things are. We are now adopting the western culture of putting our elders in home for the aged where they can be taken care of by other people.