Tell or not tell?

 

I’ve always kept things from my family, especially after moving abroad, and certainly if they are problems.  After all, what can they do, being so far away?  Telling them will only add to their worries — we have enough stress already in modern life as it is.  A number of friends I've spoken to about this subject in the past say they feel the same way.

    An 82-year-old student’s daughter has moved to another part of the world and is trying to get her dogs out there to join her.  The papers are all in place but she’s having trouble getting the approval of the authorities at the other end.  

    My student mentioned this yesterday, more than once, so it’s obviously playing on her mind.  

    It is true that a lot of old people tend to repeat things, often because they forget that they’ve said it, but probably also because old people usually have a smaller input of external experience: no work-related matters because they’re now retired; they don’t go out that much; a lot of their friends are no longer around; so they end up dwelling on a narrower (and usually more immediate, time-wise) range of matters.

    Dog-lovers (/ owners of cats, parrots, any pet animals) might protest at this, as pets are mostly seen as family, but I personally don’t think that having trouble re-locating one’s pets is important enough to add to an old person’s stress levels.  

    Old people have unavoidable health issues that are related to growing old to plague them:  diabetes, thus restricting their range of food; high blood pressure, ditto; cholesterol, ditto; arthritis; poor eyesight; etc.  Why add to their list of woes?

    This is only an idle personal opinion expressing how I see things on the scale of levels of importance.  I’m not downplaying the importance and value of animals as living beings.  It’s definitely not a criticism at all of my student’s daughter to tell her mother about the hassle with the dogs.  I know that families and friends do often share the most trivial of details about their lives, because they need to talk.

    My father started to pass out blood in his urine or stool (can’t remember which) back in 1978, aged 61.  

    He thought it might’ve been because of an internal injury from a fall while pruning the fig tree a while back, for which he’d taken some Chinese herbal concoction, so he wasn't terribly concerned, but went to get it checked out all the same.  

    It turned out to be cancer of the liver, which the family decided not to tell him about.

    On the last day of his time at the hospital, he went round the ward, cheering up everyone else, feeling sorry for them that they were stuck there while he was going home.

    So, my father died not having the worry and stress of knowing he had cancer of the liver.  

    My last landlord in Highbury died of a heart attack just three months after being diagnosed with cancer of the liver.  I was/am glad for him that he died a quick death and didn’t have to continue to suffer the horrible side effects of his chemo and radio therapy — or, worse, the more stressful mental anguish of worrying about his cancer.  

    I personally think that, being the hypochondriac his wife had said he was, he’d scared himself to death, worrying about his cancer.  

    Stress is a much bigger killer than actual physical ailments, I feel.

Hindsight often comes a bit late

From MBP [MacBook Pro] dictionary:

Hindsight:  Quote understanding of a situation or event only after it has happened or developed: with hindsight, I should never have gone. Unquote

Eureka: Quote a cry of joy or satisfaction when one finds or discovers something Unquote

Entering my 70s, I find myself constantly having an eureka moment as I go about my daily life, except it’s not of joy or satisfaction, just “oh, I see now what they mean!”.

    I, and the people in my generation that I speak to about such things, remember being told as children by the elders: “You will know what I mean when you get to my age.”  

    It was said so often that one, especially as a child, just treated it as 耳邊風 / 耳边风 ěr biān fēng / “ear side wind” / a puff of wind passing the ear:  unheeded advice, things that these old people kept repeating.

    Before I reached the age of 50, I got up one day to offer my seat to an old lady (in her 60s??) who’d just boarded the bus.  She said, “Thank you kindly, dear, but no, once I sit down, it’s hard to get up again.”  

    My legs haven’t got to that point yet, but I’m surrounded by people whose legs have, and I can see the struggle involved in the simple act of standing up from a seated position, something most people below 60 or 70 take for granted.

    With this in mind, I’m now trying to make up for lost time with regard to doing massage and relieving pain before my hands and fingers lose the strength.  The massage equivalent of 及時行樂 / 及时行乐 / jí shí xíng lè / “reach time carry-out happiness” / enjoying oneself while there’s still time / carpe diem.  

    I’d only started four years back to do massages in earnest, when I was teaching Mandarin and English at a Chinese community centre and found some grateful takers among the ping pong players there, most of whom were retirees (the common generation at community centres and the ones who don’t have to be at work 9–5).  

    I now give massages for free at least three times a week, sometimes more.  The sense of achievement one gets in having people hobble up to you in pain, some nearly half bent over in pain, then standing up straight and stretching out their bodies/arms after 20 minutes of your massage and saying, “Oh, I feel like a new person!” is indescribable and has to be witnessed or experienced in person.

    I wish I’d embarked on it much earlier.  Don’t let it be 耳邊風 to you.  Go out and do whatever it is that gives you a sense of leading a useful life before you lose the opportunity.

Good thing or bad?

 

I forwarded photos of Turkish places sent by a Turkish friend who’s home on a visit.  Italian friend’s brother who’s been to Turkey in his UNHCR capacity made a comment about the negative impact of tourism, especially mass tourism, on a place.

    This brings to mind something my Japanese friend, illustrator for children's books, now quite famous in his field, told me in the late 70s about a Japanese man (couple?) who'd joined a distance adoption scheme to sponsor a child in a third-world country.  

    He / they sent the child things that were common in Japan but not found / affordable in that country at the time (e.g., toys and stationery).  It resulted in the child being ostracised by the other children because he was different.  They also envied him and didn't like him because he had things they couldn’t have.  It might also have been that he was showing off as well — don't know.  

    The result of "wealth" in the “wrong” place, at the “wrong” time.