Last year,
we (her grandchildren) decided to build for her a decent house so as to bolster
her protection. We knew that comfort would keep her less stressed and prolong
her life, because she didn’t have any known medical disorder. Unfortunately,
the old woman passed on after sleeping in her new home for only a week. May her
soul rest with the Angels.
My grand-mom’s
death was slightly similar to that of her husband who retired (to heaven) five
years ago. He equally didn’t present any medical disorder, but we thought his
was propelled by excessive consumption of alcohol. He never signed a divorce
document with waragi (crude alcohol) until
he flew away (to heaven).
Surprisingly,
grandfather’s death didn’t give him pain. He only harvested the inconvenience
of walking easily when he got multiple dislocations caused by falling down time
and again after drinking his thing. When he died, he already had strained unrepairable
muscles and tissues, but he didn’t cry of pain. He would only cry for his drink
when we visited him. So, he died softly, like taking a long, deep sleep lasting
forever. May his soul rest with the Angels.
On the day
we were burying grandfather, we feared that her elder wife(grandma) would not
stay longer. She looked very fragile. She was as brittle as an old woman who
got beaten mercilessly and dumped along the road to die painfully on her own. We
knew that it was simply the weight of her husband’s death pressing her, hard. Anyway,
she endured and with the charm of her daughters and sons, she remained strong
and got even stronger with time. Thank God, she had clean blood, -with no
chronic condition at all.
Grandmother
was a very hopeful old woman who even made personal savings from her Social Protection
earnings given by Government. When we
were building her house, she would ask us to be open to her in case we run shot
of funds.
“I can
contribute, it’s my own house, just let me know”, she would tell us. She was a woman
of very few words, a shy woman who only expressed her emotions through plain countenance.
Her wide natural smiles would constantly
expose her well-spaced, large teeth. We will continue having strong memories of
her in our minds because she lived a simple, quiet and non-violent life.
During
last year’s Christmas festival, I had the last moment with grandmother
including making her interact with great grandchildren at home. It was nice
mixing for her a drink and observing her animated comment that made her look
like an adolescent girl.
Now that
she is deceased, I realize that spending all forms of resources on elderly
people is no wastage. It satisfies the doer emotionally and gratifies the receiver of care.
Elderly
people need more support than we most times think. They need coordinated care
involving constant presence of a physician and someone to keep them clean
always. They require invariable amount of social inclusion to keep them off isolation
and its resulting emotional distress. So when we have children, let’s have them
play near our elderly people to keep them cheerful and worriless. It’s good to
die when ripe and happy.
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