The Unbeaten Centurion
I attended a birthday party the other day.
The usual balloons and streamers, the usual cakes and sweets, the usual fun and frolic, the usual 105 year old birthday girl....
Mrs. Queenie was actually born in 1901! That makes her twice as old as I presently am when our country got its independence, an event which seems as recent to me as .....well, the Dark Ages.
There she was, all wrinkled and shrivelled, her wheelchair apparently seeming to engulf her. She was hard of hearing, her eyesight was far gone and the wheelchair was her indispensable companion. But the smart way in which she cocked her head to try to hear us better and the beautifully enunciated "Thank You"s that followed every birthday wish clearly indicated that she was still very much 'all there'.
I've often heard people being unsympathetic (or atleast being differently sympathetic) towards elderly folks who are in a not-much-better-than-vegetable state. And I've been confused myself.
What's the point in living so long if you're not contributing to society?....
You're just being a burden to others around you....
Live life to the fullest! So what if it's shorter, it's better!....
I'd rather take my life than not be able to fend for myself....
You're just celebrating a sentimental anachronism from a bygone era.....
But the fact is, you don't live to be a hundred without learning something about life, without wanting to learn more about life. These are the few folks who have managed to cheat death for longer than most and in the process, have got richer for all their experiences. And it's here that their contribution to society remains to be tapped.
Reminds me of this Project about the Supercentenarians which I came across recently. Iam not sure this is a book I will be ...well, dying to read, but it sure is a project I would be more than eager to help out with!
As the author says,
"They are people we can learn from. They are just sitting there, waiting to give us this extraordinary information. You just have to listen."
Happy birthday, Mrs. Queenie!
posted by Jonas at 1/05/2006 02:53:00 PM |
4 Comments:
Btw,the older generation is always ready to share its wisdom to the newer generation,provided there is some one to hear to them.
Its Good for us,if we hear to them..which makes them happy too....
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Did you know .. the records say ( Guiness ... not the ultimate authority though ;-) ) that an American is the oldest living man today ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emiliano_Mercado_del_Toro
I always thought Japaneese had a longer stint on this planet ...
@Murali, yup, 'sense of being helpful' for the oldies too....which is interesting, the extent to which we need to depend on others to actually feel our existence useful in someway.
@merc, I guess on an average, Japs live longer than most...with more respect too, which actually might be the crucial factor :-)
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