Dip: Fatigue of living carrying weight

Admittedly, we do not delve deep into the minds of the elderly and try to understand their thoughts and feelings. Their marginalization seems to have been accepted by the family, society and even the government, resulting in the increasing number of old age homes. The children of elders living in old age homes forget that it is the parents who have brought them up by giving them warmth throughout their lives, by taking hardships themselves. Whatever they are today is because of their parents. This problem is not confined to one society or one country, the sin of neglecting the elderly is committed everywhere. A few years ago, an attempt was made to know the thoughts of twenty-five elderly men and women in the Netherlands. It shed a good light on the conflict between the older generation. A contrast between their expectations and reality was also estimated. Most of the elderly men and women expressed a desire to remain active until the natural end of life and live with dignity, not wanting to drag out the rest of their lives. Even at the age of seventy-seven-eighty-five, the same old fire was burning in him. Most of the elderly people expressed their sorrow of being lonely. All have gone away from him. The possibility of relationship or companionship is dead. Some of the elderly chose to live away on their own, while isolation was imposed on most of the elderly. An old man said: 'I have two sons, yet I have to live alone. I am in touch with people my own age, but I don't feel the closeness with them that I want.' Another old man said: 'My children are well settled in their lives. Nobody needs me anymore. I cannot express my opinion publicly. Constantly fear that if I say something, the children will say – and this old man fell in between.' Many older people said that the contacts they had maintained with people their own age were beginning to wear off quickly. An elder said: 'I go to camps, to concerts or out with groups, but none of these can take away my loneliness. Every time the loneliness that has accumulated inside me comes out.' All the older men and women spoke of the pain of having lost their importance. “I feel like I'm unworthy, worthless to my family and society. They have forgotten that I am still there. Although I have reluctantly accepted the reality that my work is done. What I was doing till now, now others are doing it. I haven't even lived for myself.' Every old man's story was full of pain. He felt that there was no purpose in his life. An elderly woman said: 'I haven't forgotten my skills yet, but I'm not allowed to use them. I was a teacher. I have taught many students. None of them remember me. I can still teach boys, but society no longer needs me. A retired person is suddenly useless.' An old man's anguish: 'I have become an outsider and I no longer exist. No one listens to me. They feel that I am behind the changes that come with the times. When I look back on my past, I feel like I'm looking at myself through the wrong end of a telescope – everything moves further and further away, I'm no longer of this world.' The pain of being left with no identity becomes unbearable for the older generation who have faced many hardships throughout their lives. An old painter woman lived in a nursing home. He has preserved many of his pictures and arranged them in his room. He said: 'Sometimes I wonder if I made all these pictures? When I retired as a school drawing teacher at the age of fifty-eight, people asked me – what do you do now? I said – I will draw pictures. He made fun of me. I have been uprooted by my family, by my health. Lying alone in this nursing home, I feel as if I have no past.' What a terrible irony that an entire rich generation, cut off from family and society, has no one to turn to when they are tired of carrying the burdens of life. A sage said; 'I feel like a very heavy bag of cement all day, waking and sleeping. Living on my back – and the weight increases with every breath.' }