Adonis Diaries

It’s not natural: The children walking as slowly as the parents…

Those elderly children… living amid their elderly parents.

And the parents are not under relentless therapeutic treatment…

The elderly children might be under relentless therapeutic treatment, just to reverse this living process

The plight of the civil war on Lebanon (1975-1989) is that the younger generations have immigrated to greener pastures, not to return if not coerced, and the country is the land of the elderly.

The remaining elderly have lost their tops, and the control of their bottoms, to be relied upon as elders.

The elderly people are no role model to the newer generations: They are as isolated, sectarian, and embittered as they were before, during, and after the war.

The newer generations have no steady and firm role models in the land to emulate and listen to, and they are steadily sliding into another civil war.

The engaged young generation is very small, and mostly concentrated in Beirut, and not focused on a priority list of required reforms.

The possibility of conducting a second census since 1935 is becoming a nightmare: It is not so much a political quagmire for power sharing in this sectarian and feudal structur,e as it is the reality of discovering horror stories.

How to hire qualified census takers, ready to confront the need to enter homes: Residences that reek of elderlies, exclusively inhabited by totally helpless people, left to cope on their own to survive the miserable few years they could surmount if cared for decently.

This speudo-State and the community facilities (foundations and caritative organization…) are not reliable entities to provide the basic necessities: ears wax-shut and need to be cleaned, eyes to be corrected, someone to give a wash once a month, kindered heart to have nailsof elderly cut, hair trimmed, women hair tainted…

How much courage and charity in the mind and heart is required to enter a domicile that stink of the elderly?

People spending the entire winter in “bed” as best means to confront the cold weather, totally lacking heating systems and lacking the means to secure any heating substitute.

Elderly people who are not about to be receiving guests, stray visitors, not even from relatives to check on them: forgotten, neglected, and loathed stinking creatures that refuse to die…

Elderly people who lack the energy and stamina to get out of bed, even for bodily urgencies, to remember that there is sunshine to meet and feel and taste on their skins, to smile to a mankind in the real, and not a figment of their imagination and horrifying dreams, of time past and whithered hopes and dashed off wishes…

A country for the elderly: towns waking up and gathering for funeral ceremonies, every day, sometimes twice a day…

Elderly taken to hospital to die there: No preventive cares extended to those left behind…

Close relatives barging in and hollering: “Are you alright?” They don’t wait for an answer: They think they captured the entire situation. And they swiftly leave, as they entered.

I know something of what I’m writing: I live with my elderly parents and I no longer care about the mornings: The nights are my friends.

I have been witnessing this wretched life and wondering: “Is there any decent end to it all?”

I worked in the 90’s in San Francisco at a “Full service retirement” building of ten floors. The building close to downtown was transformed to “welcome” the elderly.

This private company didn’t even have nurses or medical staff to check on the elderly: And their rooms reeked of the stinch, no matter what is done…

Many were senile to believe that their stay is temporary: Surely their children will take them back, soon.

They died and their bodies retrieved in the dark of night, whisked away to maintain a semblance of normalcy…

Elderly who were still mad enough of how they ended up managed to jump off a window, instead of submitting to the indignity of incarceration…

At least, at that time, San Francisco city extended this facility: every couple of weeks, the city dispatched a driver in a modified van for handicapped : And hop the elderly were on their way to rediscovering the city, and to location they voiced their wishes to see…

And I was accompagnying them, taking photoes, chatting with them, writing stories of their previous life for the monthly advertising booklet…

I wish I had the idea and stamina of collecting the elderly youthful adventures…

It’s not natural: The children walking as slowly as the parents…

It’s not natural: the childre behaving as depressed and hopeless as their parents…

Modern medication to prolonging life, at the expense of quality of life, did a big disservice to mankind.

It’s not just climatic change…

Elderly people want your physical presence, they need “pragmatic compassion“