This morning at the Cheshire Home...
Sooo.
I went down this morning, to tutor Viki in Math. Fractions. Yup, that's for a 17-year-old boy.
Before he came into the room, I looked around. Now the room we have tuition in is called the Quiet Room, and it's fully airconditioned and equipped not only with a convection microwave, etc, but also with framed snapshots detailing the history of the Home hanging proudly on the 4 walls.
I think it's great, I really do, that the Home is so proud of its 50 something-years history, and of its founder, Lord Cheshire from England. I think it's great that there're snapshots of visiting dignitaries - it's not everyday that one gets to shake the hands of Ong Teng Chong, for instance. Blah blah. But what I found saddest of all was the fact that there were so many "Can you recognize the residents?" scattered all over the many pictures.
Imagine. Most of these pictures are at least 30 years old, faded with age, in sepia or black and white. And even while I eagerly tried to spot some residents that I could recognize, I realized just how sad this whole activity was. Because I really could recognize some of them. Sure enough, their location had changed, from Changi all the way to Serangoon Gardens Way.. sure enough, their wheelchair was now made entirely of steel (hey, in the olden days the backs of wheelchairs used to be made of rattan!).. but even so, the faces were the same, the expressions were the same... same as the faces that now greeted me, every Saturday as I hoofed it into the Home entrance.
No doubt, it's meant to instil some interest-factor into the mini-exhibition of the Home's history - but it's still sad. To have to think of people whose families have abandoned them, or been dead, for so long - the earliest photo containing someone I could recognize dated all the way back to 1976. Wow. That's 30 years, 8.5 more than I've lived. 30 years of being termed a "resident".. 30 years of staying in a 4 person room and of having to share a toilet with scores of others.. 30 years of having to eat porridge for lunch out of consideration for those who cannot munch (that's what Viki tells me!)... 30 years of sitting day in and day out in a wheelchair, gazing at the thousands who come and visit and still leave... 30 years of watching your friends die, one by one. Wow. 30 years. Just imagine that.
Maybe I'm being unintentionally off the mark here.. I am not an insider, and life inside the Cheshire Home could be much better than how I've described it. Maybe I am really not assigning to the residents of the Home the dignity they are entitled to. Maybe I don't see the tiny joys, the little sparks of happiness, that make their lives full. Yup, and if I am, I am very sorry.
But... I just don't know. I really would not like to spend 30 years like that.
I went down this morning, to tutor Viki in Math. Fractions. Yup, that's for a 17-year-old boy.
Before he came into the room, I looked around. Now the room we have tuition in is called the Quiet Room, and it's fully airconditioned and equipped not only with a convection microwave, etc, but also with framed snapshots detailing the history of the Home hanging proudly on the 4 walls.
I think it's great, I really do, that the Home is so proud of its 50 something-years history, and of its founder, Lord Cheshire from England. I think it's great that there're snapshots of visiting dignitaries - it's not everyday that one gets to shake the hands of Ong Teng Chong, for instance. Blah blah. But what I found saddest of all was the fact that there were so many "Can you recognize the residents?" scattered all over the many pictures.
Imagine. Most of these pictures are at least 30 years old, faded with age, in sepia or black and white. And even while I eagerly tried to spot some residents that I could recognize, I realized just how sad this whole activity was. Because I really could recognize some of them. Sure enough, their location had changed, from Changi all the way to Serangoon Gardens Way.. sure enough, their wheelchair was now made entirely of steel (hey, in the olden days the backs of wheelchairs used to be made of rattan!).. but even so, the faces were the same, the expressions were the same... same as the faces that now greeted me, every Saturday as I hoofed it into the Home entrance.
No doubt, it's meant to instil some interest-factor into the mini-exhibition of the Home's history - but it's still sad. To have to think of people whose families have abandoned them, or been dead, for so long - the earliest photo containing someone I could recognize dated all the way back to 1976. Wow. That's 30 years, 8.5 more than I've lived. 30 years of being termed a "resident".. 30 years of staying in a 4 person room and of having to share a toilet with scores of others.. 30 years of having to eat porridge for lunch out of consideration for those who cannot munch (that's what Viki tells me!)... 30 years of sitting day in and day out in a wheelchair, gazing at the thousands who come and visit and still leave... 30 years of watching your friends die, one by one. Wow. 30 years. Just imagine that.
Maybe I'm being unintentionally off the mark here.. I am not an insider, and life inside the Cheshire Home could be much better than how I've described it. Maybe I am really not assigning to the residents of the Home the dignity they are entitled to. Maybe I don't see the tiny joys, the little sparks of happiness, that make their lives full. Yup, and if I am, I am very sorry.
But... I just don't know. I really would not like to spend 30 years like that.
posted by Yellow Garfield at 3:56 PM
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