It isn't bad at all

 

In many ways I had been enjoying getting older. It isn’t terribly bad that I do not have to drive more than 80 km to Putrajaya every morning at 6.30am to work. It isn’t terribly bad that I get to watch online Chinese dramas for hours instead of looking at office files for hours. And, definitely it isn’t bad at all that I get to meet my old friends every now then just to chat over ‘nothings” instead of meeting unfamiliar faces ever so often to discuss about so very “big” official matters.  

Young yesterday, old today!

I like to call myself middle-aged but I know it isn’t true. I know which band the Statistics Department would put me into.  Then there are the various body parts that don’t work like they used to. Obviously all these had not happened overnight, although it seems that way, young yesterday, old today! It’s not that I am worrying about the fact that I am getting older, but I do worry when a day should come when I would need help getting around.  I was comforted when I read an article which said that “getting older doesn’t have to mean disability, it doesn’t have to mean disease." Experts say that older adults can take action, even well into their 60s and 70s, to reduce the risk of developing chronic disease and avoid injury

Geriatricians said that one step to take is to exercise. “I have known patients who have started exercising in their 70s and reaped great benefits from it," said Carmel B. Dyer, a geriatrician and director of the Division of Geriatric and Palliative Medicine at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston.   She said exercise helps control the weight, lower blood pressure, and strengthen muscles, which in turn make one less likely to fall. And more muscle mass helps the elderly to metabolize drugs more like a young person, which means the drugs will be cleared from the body more effectively.  Physical activity has also been linked to a decreased risk of dementia.

The thing with feathers

     

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all

-Emily Dickinson

371,900 people aged over 66 in the UK suffered abuse!

371,900 people aged over 66 in the UK suffered abuse! The figures were compiled by the House of Commons library by extrapolating from a survey of 2,000 people who live in their own homes first carried out in 2007 by researchers at the National Centre for Social Research and King's College London. They found that the majority of abusers, 53%, were living in the respondent's house at the time of the abuse. Of those, 65% of perpetrators were recorded as having committed physical, psychological or sexual abuse!

The abuse figures are all the more alarming because they exclude care home residents and people suffering from dementia who live in the community.

Source: elderly abuse

The closest one can come to being present at creation

“It didn’t occur to me that gardening, like music, could demand practice, patience, a willingness to make mistakes.” ― Amy Stewert

Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul - Luther Burbank

The love of gardening is a seed once sown that never dies.
Gertrude Jekyll

I think this is what hooks one to gardening: it is the closest one can come to being present at creation - Phyllis Theroux

A story (Part 1)- the SHOCK!

I was inspired to put this story down in writing by an old friend who called me today.  We chatted and somehow she managed to persuade me to recollect and she listened.

The woman was about 40, married for 12 years, with 3 children ages 11, 9 and 6.  That day was to become the start of a most depressing and confusing period in her life. 

It started very simply.  A postman came.  She waved thanks to the postman and went to retrieve the letter from the letterbox.  It was addressed to her and it was very thick.  The handwriting was very familiar to her.  "Why should he write me a letter when he could just call me?".  She wondered, bewildered. 

The contents of the letter shocked her.  In the letter he confessed he had been having a torrid affair with his ex fiancee for a long time.  There were some details about where they would meet and how he had been unfaithful.  The letter also told her that the abusive and anonymous phone calls that she used to get very often late in the night were all from his lover.  The letter acknowledged that she had been looking after their family while he had contributed little.  At the end of the 10-paged letter, he asked for forgiveness.  He also said that since she now knows that he had been unfaithful, he was sure she would want a divorce and he was ready to divorce her.  He said he wanted to come clean and he was ready for the consequences and a divorce. 

She was bewildered. I remember she did not cry.  I remember she took a  long bath, washed her hair, went for a long walk in the neighbourhood (with the letter in her pouch) and when she came home she read the letter over and over again, how many times, I cannot remember. 

This may be the plot for a short story I am working on.  Let's wait and see how A story (Part 2)goes...when I get the inspiration again.