Getting old is unavoidable, but not a crime<\/p>\n
Elderly people face complex hidden problems. The Jakarta
\nPost's contributor Mehru Jaffer reveals the facts in conjunction
\nwith the National Day of the Elderly that falls on May 29.<\/p>\n
JAKARTA (JP): Once upon a time Arifin Hardgakusuma was a
\nfairly affluent businessman. He owned a leather factory in
\nJakarta. He was able to afford an education in the Netherlands
\nfor his younger brother and he traveled to the USA.<\/p>\n
As he grew older, Arifin lost his wife and sold his business.
\nHe could no longer find a servant loyal and loving enough to take
\ncare of his home. Eventually the 80 year old Arifin lost, along
\nwith his teeth, the capacity to dream. After every flower and
\nfruit of love also vanished from his life, he was left with
\nlittle choice but to pack his bags and head for Ciputat's Hanna
\nHome in South Jakarta, where he has been living with 62 others
\nlike himself for the past six months.<\/p>\n
His 25-year-old daughter visits him sometimes. Arifin blames
\nnobody for his fate in the autumn of his life. "The world has
\nchanged. Life is so hectic. Nobody believes in staying at home
\nanymore. The father, mother and children all go their own way
\nevery day. They seldom meet, they seldom talk. It is all so
\ndifferent from when I was a child," says Arifin who spends much
\nof his time reading the Bible, newspapers and books in the Dutch
\nlanguage.<\/p>\n
Imagine yourself also with whitened hair, desires failing and
\nstrength slowly ebbing away. When that happens would you like to
\nbe stored far from the comfort and familiarity of your own home
\nin a ghetto, no matter how golden? If the answer is no, then try
\nnot to do to the elderly what you would not like done to you in
\nyour old age.<\/p>\n
Perhaps all those living in the fast lane and in the prime of
\ntheir youth today forget that one day they too shall be little
\nmore than shriveled-up creatures too weak to be on their own.<\/p>\n
"There is a denial of the personhood of age because people
\ncannot bear to think that they will ever be one of those dreary,
\ndecrepit, senile, smelly, isolated, lonely, incontinent,
\nchildlike elderly," Betty Friedan, feminist fatale and author of
\nThe Fountain Of Age once said.<\/p>\n
After having spread the mystique of feminism around the world
\nfor over three decades, the fiery Friedan, herself an aging
\nAmerican, is deep into researching the mystique of age.<\/p>\n
At a New York conference entitled "Who is Responsible for My
\nOld Age?", Friedan is quoted as saying that an imminent
\nbreakthrough in thinking about age will catalyze a new movement
\nfor social change this century comparable to the youth, black and
\nwomen's movement of the last 50 years; and it will look at age,
\nnot as a decline from the youthful peak but on its own
\nterms...requiring new concepts of family...of housing, education,
\nrecreation and medical care as well as new economic and social
\npolicies.<\/p>\n
In the meanwhile, stories told by those already working with
\nthe gray population here about the way some of them are treated
\nby younger members of their families have a stranger than fiction
\nring about them.<\/p>\n
Mrs. Daud Palilu of the Karya Kasih home in Central Jakarta
\ntells the tale of Siwabessy, an elderly spinster who spent an
\nentire life taking care of the three children of her sister who,
\nalong with her husband, perished in a road accident.<\/p>\n
Once the orphans were educated and gainfully employed they
\nleft for the Netherlands. Only a few weeks later, after the
\nabandoned elder was admitted into the home, she was found dead in
\nher bed with a scarf tied tightly around her neck and a suicide
\nnote beside her.<\/p>\n
Siwabessy is yet another inmate who was brought to the home by
\na young man who said that he was just a concerned neighbor. Later
\nit was revealed that he was adopted by the childless Siwabessy
\nand brought up like her own son. Once her husband died, this
\n"son" asked Siwabessy to live with him in Bandung. Later he
\nreturned to Jakarta and sold off Siwabessy's family home in
\nMenteng and pocketed all the money. He then escorted his "mother"
\nto the care of Mrs. Daud and disappeared.<\/p>\n
Anna, 73, has been at the Hanna Home for nearly a decade.
\nChildless Anna lost her husband 25 years ago. For a while she
\nlived by herself. She has two brothers in the Netherlands and one
\nis a doctor at the Pondok Indah hospital but they don't ever see
\neach other. She is very happy in the home where she helps doctors
\nwho visit the polyclinic twice a week. The only thing that
\nbothers her now is the terrible headache when her blood pressure
\nshoots up. Then she closes the door to her room and sleeps off
\nthe pain.<\/p>\n
"I may have nobody today but I still have my god," says Anna
\nwhose favorite person is a niece living in Grogol. She may visit
\nthe niece once in a while but she never misses the service at the
\nchurch every Sunday.<\/p>\n
Jenny, 68, is an unmarried sister from an affluent Palembang
\nfamily with businesses in Singapore. She lived with some nieces
\nand nephews in Jakarta till she had a fall recently and found it
\ndifficult to walk. She is happy to be in this home as she no
\nlonger feels like a burden on anyone. Although aging in the
\nfamiliar comfort of one's home is an idyllic option rather than
\nbeing in an institution, there is nothing worse for people like
\nJenny than the feeling that at their age they must live on the
\nbitter bread of dependency.<\/p>\n
According to Mrs. Daud, homes like her own are not really the
\nanswer to the ballooning population of the aged. She is more in
\nfavor of home care where social workers go to each neighborhood
\nand organize better living conditions for older people within
\ntheir own environment.<\/p>\n
At the moment different non-governmental organizations are
\nrunning some 55 home care centers around the city where food,
\nmedical care and in some cases even shelter is provided for over
\n4,000 people. "The city is roughly divided into 300
\nneighborhoods and we have only 55 home care centers so you can
\nimagine how much more work is required," Mrs. Daud told The
\nJakarta Post.<\/p>\n
Although there is no well defined national policy to improve
\nlife for the elderly, without the 16 homes situated in different
\nparts of the city, life for the old and weak would only be worse.<\/p>\n
Father Chandra Udaya, who supervises the Hanna Home, says that
\nall those who are not younger than 65 years and able to pay Rp
\n350,000 per month are eligible to stay at the premises that sits
\non sprawling grounds landscaped with pretty paths meandering in
\nbetween many trees, flower beds and a chapel. This place provides
\nthe elderly not only with a roof over their head but also with a
\nmore vibrant social life and, above all, security.<\/p>\n
The eldest at the home is a 97 year old and the youngest one
\nis 68 years old. Asked what it felt like for a comparatively
\nyounger person like himself to be surrounded by such elderly
\npeople, Father Chandra said that he is aware all the time that
\nthis is his future too.<\/p>\n
"I would like to be treated with love and respect when I am
\nold, the way I try and treat the inmates of this home," he said.<\/p>\n
Is that too much to ask for a group of people whose only crime
\nis that they have grown old?<\/p>",
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