Friday, September 12, 2008
9:50am-noon
Observation
When I walked in, it seemed as though the cycle of life had been reversed. Elderly people were scattered in their wheelchairs all over the large dining room doing nothing. Some were fast asleep, still in their sitting position. Some had fallen asleep slumped over the table. This one man was meowing when I walked in, and a woman who no longer had the power of comprehensible speech was yelling complete nonsense. Most of them have to be changed and fed. I did crafts with them that I would do with a kindergarden class. It's a circle. They're acting like small children again, needing constant care and supervision. I guess it just surprised me how child-like these elderly people were... and how the nurses that cared for them seemed eerily like weary pre-school teachers. Except, with people at the end of their life instead of the beginning, it only gets worse. These nurses don't really have the hope or satisfaction of seeing their "students" grow up and learn more.
Introspection
I know the first day is always hard, but the sight of these grown people mentally and physically decaying broke something inside of me. They are living in our society's purgatory, cared for until they pass on to heaven. It scared me. These people have lived full lives. They deserve decency and dignity, but they have none left. Most of them forget simple things and can't control their own actions any more. I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be so old that the course of nature robs me of my dignity and pride. I'd rather die at 60 in my right mind than live to be 100 and mentally absent. I don't want to be that burden to someone or left to die in earthly purgatory. I guess it is interesting, though, that the nature of life comes in a circle. It proves that storing up for yourself pride and treasures on earth doesn't do you any good when you're sitting in a nursing home meowing at the kitten outside the glass door. It also makes me think about how Jesus said in Mark 10:15, "I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." So I find it interesting that near the end of our lives, the mind regresses back into that of a child. Is it so we will be ready to finally enter the Kingdom of God?
