Читать книгу The Secret of Happy Parents: How to Stay in Love as a Couple and True to Yourself - Steve Biddulph - Страница 14

An elderly woman we know has lived in a nursing home for many years. Her conversations centre mostly on her own discomforts, her irritations with her fellow inmates. Her life doesn’t seem to mean much beyond just waiting. Perhaps living in a nursing home has made her like this. Or perhaps she always was rather self-focused. It is sad, and a bit depressing, to visit her.

When our kids were little they once took their most precious possession – a pet baby wombat – to show this old lady. ‘Everest’ the wombat (don’t ask!) was wrapped in a blanket, in a shopping basket, and perhaps we should have explained more loudly just what was in the package as we sat it on the old lady’s knee! At the sight of a furry creature among the folds of the blanket she shrieked and almost threw it across the room. She doesn’t much like furry things.

Whatever adventures and passions this old lady once had are now not easy to reach. Her relatives will grieve her passing, but not a lot. They seem to be waiting for the relief of hearing that she has died. This is one kind of old age, one kind of life. Can you imagine what it might be like to grow old like this: out of touch, grouchy, self-obsessed and shut away from life?

It doesn’t have to be like this. The bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom, tells about an old man, a college teacher, who is dying from a slowly paralysing disease. This old man was so loving and interesting and had built up so many dear friendships, that even though he could barely move or even breathe properly, his house was crowded with people, full of love, and he was ‘teaching’ to the very last – about life and how to live it. Perhaps you know someone just like this, who as they get older seem to get more full of life; not pushed to the edges. You delight in their company whenever you get the chance.

So it seems there are two ways through life. And when you get old it will become very clear which path you have taken. If you choose to make time for love in your life, then love will come back to you when you are old and in need of it. If you focus in on yourself and your own wants and needs, then you had better save lots of money, ‘cos no-one is going to care for you much unless you pay them!