We often think of how to spend our remaining days after retirement.This looks at various options that can enrich your life and give you the satisfaction that you have lived well and have been useful to others in significant ways.
One always gets to thinking about old age and what it means. The lucky or unlucky ones get to be old and either enjoy it or dread it depending upon their circumstances. Then there are those who go early due to disease, accident or incompetent doctors who make mistakes but are not accountable. Hindus believe that each person lives a predetermined course in life so there is not much anyone can do about it. So it is ideal to plan for the old age whether or not you get there one day. It is like planning for buying a house or a car for which you have to save unless you are the type who believes in the plastic credit card that is so fashionable these days.
I see many old people who are bent, feeble and struggling to stay on their feet although they may have once been athletic, very energetic and full of life. Old age comes to most people and it can be a blessing as well as a curse. It is a blessing to those who have lived a very useful life and are remembered as generous, kind and helpful persons who did great things in their life. Their life is an inspiration to all who strive to be like them. They are like old wine that gets better with age. Then there are those who have totally wasted their life by getting addicted to drugs or alcohol and have gone through failed marriages, failed jobs, failed families and have ended up destitute in their old age because they lived their life recklessly. The world is full of such people who never planned for their rainy days.
There is a story about a brilliant Indian man who was a top notch student in his journalism class at Harvard. His classmates all graduated and got excellent jobs and encouraged him to do the same but he said that he wanted to be a famous writer and would write about the assassination of John F. Kennedy. His lovely American wife worked hard to support him and his folly and put up with him for a long time gently trying to persuade him to get a job but he failed to do so. He even went to an interview in India for a lucrative job but walked out when they told him that his job in New York would include giving the visiting dignitaries a good time meaning pimping.
Finally his loving wife left him leaving him with no support and destitute so he who was used to smoking fine tobacco and good living became sick and died with his dream of becoming a writer unfulfilled. His wife did not come to his funeral but was one day seen kneeling at a paupers grave in some forgotten cemetery because she still loved him.
There are many people who waste their lives even after getting some education. Such people have no friends, no one to help them in their old age and leave no legacy. Some end up in jail because of something they did in a fit of rage or foolishness. There was a fellow from my fathers village who was a thief and spent most of his life in or out of jail but living a life of a beggar and crime. He had no education and no skill other than pick pocketing. He showed up at our house and told us that he traveled by train all over the country without a ticket because he was an expert in avoiding ticket checkers. He demanded and got new clothes and shoes plus pocket money from my father because my father was a generous person and felt pity for this fellow. This despicable person then disappeared for good, never to be heard from again. What happens to such people? Someone with Harvard education dies and is buried in a paupers grave and the other without any education and skill except thievery dies by the road side with no one to care for him. Both are misfits and lived recklessly depending on others’ charity.
Old age comes to most people who live a normal life, have a job and raise a family. Some enjoy their old age with their children and their grandchildren, travel all over the world and take care of their spouse. They are the lucky ones but how many are so lucky? What if one day your life is turned upside down by war, famine or natural calamity? How does anyone prepare himself for such disasters that hit so many people? How does a person prepare himself when he is suddenly laid off from his job because the coal mine or the steel mill in his small town is closed? There are millions of people who find themselves in dire straits due to no fault of their own and no one to help them.
Often people think that their kin and children will look after them in their old age but many are deceived. In some countries in Europe, their governments look after the old people by making health care free or affordable. The social workers check on them from time to time and tend to their needs. But poorer countries cant afford such care for their old citizens so they depend on their family. Nowadays there are many fancy old age homes in many countries where one can retire in comfort. Their all needs are taken care of but at a steep price so it serves only those who can afford. This leaves the vast majority of people on their own. Think about the poor people in Asia and Africa.
In India some people choose a life of wandering sadhus who are religious people and have no families. They live often in shelters provided for them and get food by begging. Among the Buddhists, you see the monks in saffron robes going out with the begging bowls early in the morning. People give them food because they feel that it is their duty to do so. But ordinary people are not wandering sadhus or monks. Those who are employed by the government and serve a long time, retire with a good pension that is often adjusted for inflation so they manage to live a decent life in their old age. The wife gets the pension in India if the husband dies. However, others are not so lucky who work for private companies or are self employed. It is often the staggering cost of healthcare in old age that dooms most people who do not have insurance.
I understand that in Australia everybody is taken care of by their healthcare system no matter what the cost. It is so in France, England, Nordic countries and Belgium. Their healthcare system is the envy of the world. Among the poorer countries only Cuba can claim to have the universal health care but the Cuban revolution was made on the premise that everybody should have free education and healthcare.Their land reform is exemplary because it gave land to the landless peasants for the first time making the land more productive but other countries have not been able to do it due to corruption that breeds like flies in their capitalistic societies.
When all is said and done, there is really no one responsible for your old age except you in most countries. This is where long term planning becomes very useful. After taking care of the education of your children and paying for the house and other expenses, you are left with your spouse to take care of if you are married and just yourself if you are not. So spend the money wisely and save a good portion of what you earn in a lifetime for old age because money is the only friend you get left.
There is a saying that goes like How you spend your dash is more important than how long you live. On the gravestone you see it inscribed with something like Born year Died year. I will end it with a story about an old man and how he spent his remaining days.
He lived alone in an old house by himself and took care of himself as best as he could because he wanted to be free in his old age. His son and daughter-in-law tried to move him into a home for the aged and sell the house but he decided not to leave and carry on as best as he could. One day he saw a bunch of teenagers trying to steal his old car so he gave them a chase and caught one of them. He found out that he was a Hmong refugee from South East Asia who had settled in the neighborhood. The Hmong gang roamed freely doing bad things like stealing cars, selling drugs and even raping the sister of this fellow because he refused to join the gang.
The old man thought that the young fellow was not a bad person and decided to help him by giving him odd jobs around the house and even gave him all the tools from his workshop so that he could become a carpenter. Then the gang beat up this Lao boy but no one could go to the police because everyone was terrified of the gang. So one day the old man wearing a long coat went to the house of the gang leader in the evening and said that their criminal days are over and they should leave the boy alone. But they laughed and threatened the old man with guns. He then slowly put his hand inside his coat pocket to take out something that the gang members thought was a gun so they shot him dead in front of a crowd that had gathered. The old man did not have a gun but only a cigarette lighter. He gave his life so that this murder that was witnessed by so many would now bring in the police and put these bad people in jail. The young Lao boy did not know that the old man was dying of cancer and had only a short time to live. It is a Clint Eastwood movie named Gran Torino.
Death, be not proud
Death is inevitable, only the manner and time is perhaps different for individuals so I discuss the importance of living and not dying because ultimately how you have lived is more important than the dying.
I know it is not a popular topic but it is a topic that is always at the back of our mind whether we like it or not. Death is like a final scene in the long played out drama of life but in one instant, it ends the drama and with such finality that it shocks most people. It makes people sit up and take notice of the life of someone who was here yesterday but today he is gone forever.
We all know someone who was dear to us who has left us sometime at the prime of his or her life or at other times at a rich old age leaving behind perhaps a great legacy or the story of incredible valor and courage that people still talk about and even erect a statue in his honor.
Some people leave behind such an impact that sears into the general consciousness of people in a way that cannot be easily forgotten. Who can forget Che Guevara or Nelson Mandela? Who can forget Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King?
Some say that we all possess the seed of nobility, the seed of greatness in us but very few see that seed grow into a tree that humanity takes notice of. Most of us will die someday, mourned by a few and soon forgotten, never to reach greatness that stayed latent and sleeping,never to wake up to show the full potential of a person. Their stories are never told and they leave no legacy behind. This is the story of the vast majority of humanity.
But I can imagine what incredible stories they took with them to their graves or funeral pyre that no one heard anymore. Normally this was the duty of the bards who kept the stories alive through their storytelling magic in societies where the oral tradition was practiced.
The ancients found a way to record their stories in cave paintings or in hieroglyphs in dark underground tomb walls that were hermetically sealed to preserve them. Others chose stone monuments like in Angkor Wat where kilometer long galleries preserved the stories in bas-relief forever.
But what about the common people? Perhaps they too had something to tell about their achievements, their successes and their contribution to the society where they lived. Who has recorded how many thousands of sick people whom the shaman or the herbal doctor cured in his lifetime and had only his poverty to show for in return? Who remembers the simple old man who stood up to assert his human rights and received a bullet as a reward? Who will remember Tien An Men where thousands died because they only wanted freedom?
We all tend to forget the contribution of common people who fought for the rights of all of us but died unknown, unrewarded and un-sung just because they never made the headlines and never wrote books about them. Did anyone remember the common soldiers who died in large numbers in the battle of Kohima so that one day we all could be free? Did anyone care what happened to the abandoned soldiers of the Indian National Army of Bose after the army was disbanded?
That is the fate of ordinary people whom we all forget and remember only those who made headlines. Death wipes their slate clean as if they never existed.
I come from a culture where death is considered just a passing phase in the cycle of life and death, where people believe that we die and pass on to the next life, where the human body is considered nothing more than old worn out clothes that one must discard and get new ones in their next life.
I have seen how soon after the passing of a person from this world, people calmly sip their tea and discuss the weather as if it really does not matter. The photo of the departed stays on the wall for a while but is eventually discarded because the second or the third generation cannot relate to that person whom they never knew and never met.
In other cultures they visit the gravesites of the departed ones not often to remember them but as a part of a ritual on All Souls Day where drinking and eating becomes the priority.
There is a story in Hindu mythology that is interesting so I will mention it here.
There was a woman called Savitri who married Satyavan and were very happy together but one day Satyavan died, leaving the grieving Savitri who so loved her husband. Soon the God of Death called Yama showed up and took the soul of Satyavan on his shoulder and started walking but she started to follow him so Yama asked why she was following him. She said that she had nothing more to live for and will go where her husband goes.
Yama said that she could not go where the souls go after death but she continued on and would not quit so the God of Death said he will grant her three boons if she will quit and go back, so she agreed.
She asked for happiness as the first boon, so it was granted. She then asked for prosperity as the second boon which was also granted. She then asked for many children as the last boon which the God of Death also granted because he was getting tired of Savitri following him, but she started following him again.
The God then asked why she was still following him to which she answered that her last boon could not be fulfilled without her husband. He knew that Savitri had outsmarted him so gave back the life of her husband.
But this is just a mythical story. In reality no one I know has ever outsmarted death although there are stories about Lamas in the Himalayas who live for hundreds of years in Shangri Las but they too eventually become dust.
Rider Haggard wrote about the eternal fire that burns deep in a cave in Africa that could give a person eternal life but that too is just a story to amuse you. Mankind has been obsessed with death since time unknown.
Today my post is about common people who leave no trace of their life behind. Millions toil under the harsh sun to grow the food we eat. Millions more toil in the inhumane sweat factories getting pitiful wages to make beautiful clothes for us so that we are not naked. Millions work very hard to build beautiful homes for us but they themselves live in cardboard and plastic shanties dying very poor and of sickness because they cannot pay for the medicines.
These are the common people who sacrifice their lives so that we can live and enjoy life. It is the same story of common soldiers who die in foreign wars that their governments wage under false pretense and get a cheap coffin as a reward.
Those who survive suffer from their injuries and neglect of their government like those poor soldiers in Walter Reed hospital. Their stories of personal sacrifice are never written so no one will ever know what they did.
Have you ever stopped to think of all the sacrifices your mother and father made to raise you, give you education and care when you were sick? Have you ever wondered how they managed to raise so many children with their meager means? Have you ever thanked your Ma who fanned you all night and kept a wet cloth on your forehead to bring down your fever?
We take their sacrifices for granted and one day their photos disappear from the house in the same way their memories become faded.
Once I said to a great lady who was dying of cancer and had a short time to live that what matters most is how a person has lived and not how long. Terrance Fox died when he was only 22 but he left behind a legacy that his country of Canada has not forgotten.
We all carry a bit of Terry Fox in us in our own way and die someday as unsung heroes so I say Death, be not proud. You can snuff out a life but you cannot snuff out the sacrifices people make so that others can live.