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“WHERE IS he going to next?”
The old man, like everybody else, I guess, was on a journey.
The hospital was a stop – perhaps the most unpleasant one, or maybe the next destination, still to be decided – would be the worst. Maybe he had already seen the worst.
He was an immigrant from Europe who came to Canada in the 1950s – he had fled war, and poverty. He had made a new life in a new country. He had worked hard – really hard. You could tell by his palms – their rough, thickened skin – and his pride.
At one time and place he had been a janitor; at another time and place, a labourer in a car assembly plant; in between he had painted and fixed things in people’s homes; eventually, he had opened his own construction company, bought a house and settled down.
He had raised a family. He had sent his children to university – so they would not have to work as hard as him, and would not have to struggle as he did – and they were now getting on with their lives, seemingly in another time and place. He did everything the right way – he worked hard.
And yet, here he was in the hospital, lying in a hospital bed in a room that smelled like a mixture of urine and faeces – unwanted, displaced, and, finally, discarded. Discarded before he was buried. Perhaps he could not wait to be buried – six feet in the earth must be better than the seventh floor of this stinking hospital, better than this unforgiving society. I wondered about his funeral. Who would be there?
Would his family, if they were to appear, bury him like this? No. They – with the help of the folks at the funeral home – would bathe him, dress him up in a suit, shirt, and tie, perfume him, comb his hair. They would make him look nice for everybody to see. A waste of bloody time and money – the man is dead. You should have done all of this when he was still alive. But when he was alive there was nobody to see, no witnesses, and there was nothing to show – the old man was just a big, heavy burden.
Was there more to his story, and their story? Who am I to judge? Was he the father who neglected his children and this was karma? Did he deserve this? Nobody deserves this. This is inhumane.
Is this just the harsh reality of getting old, alone? I hope not. It isn’t the reality for everybody – look at the other old people in the room. What did they have that he did not? Love?
Unlike the other old people in the ward who had daily visitors, he had nothing around his bed to suggest that someone loved him, and was thinking of him: no family pictures, no basket of fruits, no art and craft from grandchildren, no balloons, no newspapers, no home-baked treats, nothing. Only cheap hospital items, the basic necessities: a toothbrush, toothpaste, diapers, wipes, and a meal that looked like a pre-cooked, frozen, microwave dinner.
How did he feel to see the other patients surrounded by love? Did this old man feel anything at all? Yes, he did – but he did not show it. Perhaps it was his pride, which still seemed wholly intact. Pride is perhaps the only thing that does not disappear with age.
“Where is he going to next?” He was not going back home.
He had a home – yes, this old man still owned a home – but in a sense he was homeless. Old people are the only people in the world who could own a home, a home that is still standing and liveable, and still be homeless.
Alas, the old man had become like a delivery parcel, moving from one place to the next. You work your entire life only to end up like a parcel, shuttling from home to the hospital, back and forth, and then one day, from home, on a one-way trip, to a destination unknown.
So, here he was, perhaps on the final stretch of his journey, his pride still intact, seemingly the only thing that he carried with him, off to his next stop, perhaps the final stop. Who knows what he will meet at that stop?
He can only hope that it is better than this one. A little bit of hope and pride – it’s what he took with him on his journey. And perhaps it was all that he needed.
Taureef Mohammed is a physician from TT working in Canada
E-mail: taureef_im@hotmail.com
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