Travelling Thoughts

The “oohs” and “ahhs” when we get up in the morning. And the telltale start of a sentence when mentoring a new colleague: “when I was young…” What does it tell you?

It is something that happens to everyone. Getting older, and that is a fact of life. For some of us that means age related crisis, for some it means having to pluck gray hair out from wherever it grows—and it can also mean facing the cold, stark reality that your parents also get old, frail, and, eventually, gone.

For me, getting older means that I have my wife and our two furbabies with me on my journey through life. For my own age related crisis I already wrote in another blog, The End Of The Line(?).

Our first doggo, Lúkàs, has already journeyed to the other side of the Rainbow Bridge, and hopefully there will come one day when we go there too, insha’Allah. That, like many other mysteries remains to be seen and experienced. I tend to call that the last thing we can learn on this Earth.

What Does It Mean To Us?

As said, we do get old. That is something we should not try to avoid but rather embrace as it is part of our lives. Accepting it as a fact can bring joy to our lives. Acceptance can, however, be difficult, and it can be especially hard when it comes to our own parents and grandparents.

I daresay that in many of the Western cultures we have a tendency to externalise old age to some form of home nursing service, or elderly care home as soon as the elderly can’t manage anymore in their own home. At the same time, in many Eastern cultures it is still very common to have multiple generations living under one roof, or in a close knit community. As my wife is Malaysian, we do kind of live in an amalgamated version of these two ways of living—and it doesn’t make it easy, at least in all the cases.

My Mum lived in an assisted living home and was as happy as can be. Even when her mobility was mostly gone, her mind and wits were working well, all the way to the end of her days. She enjoyed having the nurses around, with whom she can chat and talk with. There were times when she would call me and tell about a new nurse, who happened be from whichever country and made her braids. She enjoyed that, different cultures, same goal.

But because I grew up knowing how active she was before her illness happened, it made the journey to acceptance hard and long for me. And not me alone, for her as well.

On the other hand, my father lived with us for several years, and this caused several raised eyebrows especially from Finns and some foreigners alike. This kind of arrangement is not very typical in the Finnish culture. It used to be, but not anymore. As said, it is more common in today’s world to have elderly people living alone or with their spouse and the home nursing visiting 3 times a day. Or when the time comes, they are moved into an elderly care home.

As my dad has always been a hermit-like person, happy with his books and own company, we thought it would be better if he lived with us, especially when there are days when his arthritis prevented him from doing anything. But then came that time, and this is hard for me to admit out loud, when I admitted to myself that his general health had really started to wane. It led to a realisation that either we had to stay home full time, or had to have a heart-to-heart discussion with him about what would be the next step.

Is There a Best Solution?

I think we all need to tailor make the best solutions when it comes to getting older. One size rarely fits all in these matters. Some of us have children that we, hopefully, can rely on in the future, some of us don’t. We who don’t, have to find alternative safeguards to ensure a good old age.

And that, let me be very frank, scares me.

But, one day and step at a time, there is no reason to overly worry of the tomorrow. Right?

When it comes to yourself and getting old, it is easy to push the thoughts aside and concentrate on the everyday 9-to-5 routines jnstead. But when it comes to being a child of an elderly person, we just have to have a chat with them – what is it that they want as opposed to what is it that they need. And there are times when wants and needs don’t go hand in hand.

As a son, it is paramount to me that my parent is safe and their needs are taken care of, even if they themselves think that I am just being fussy, and that they can manage on their own, even if me and my wife are having a week-long holiday in Spain. As much as the son in me wants to belive that, the nurse in me knows different.

But will the discussion be as hard and will this kind of tough love work for you and your parents?

Might, or might not. We all are individual humans with our own needs and wants. That is why there should be open communication between people and open minds to accept the fact that we need to tailor make the future to suit us all.

Like I said earlier, we should not be afraid of the future. Yes, we all get older, but hopefully also wiser and more adapted to the changes in us and around us. We may, or may not, have ailments or have to deal with our significant others going through a life altering events, but all of that is part of life.

That is not to say that we should just sit down and say “I will be ok, because I trust in God”.

Verily Allah does not change a people’s condition unless they change their inner selves.

Instead, we should get ready for the future, and have plans for ourselves how do we want our lives to be when we are older and wiser. That means I am off to get my joggers on and get into better shape.