Maybe our grandparents don’t have the energy they used to have, maybe they have trouble moving, maybe they don’t remember who we are, maybe they overreact when they talk, or maybe they make us nervous because they don’t see anything positive in their daily lives.
Perhaps so it must be, because grandparents are made up of routines and needs that we do not understand, and not only that, perhaps for us who are younger than them, it is difficult to understand the logic that explains these demands and this : subtle selfishness?that we feel in your words.
- However.
- It can be said that at a time when society is depersonalizing older adults and depriving them of their privacy.
- The concerns they express to us often respond to their need to reaffirm their identity.
Remember that they exercise their right to decide a stage in their lives in which they depend on others, do not get angry because they walk slowly, do not get angry if they shout, cry or take turns sending your message.
When your elders’ speech is not patient, remember that this may be the last time you hear this battle from your past. Love them in their old age, give them what they need. No matter how long they’re in, they need your support and affection.
“There is a rupture in the history of the family, where the ages accumulate and overlap and the natural order loses its meaning: it is when the son becomes his father’s father.
This is when the father grows old and begins to walk as if he were shrouded in fog. Slow, slow, imprecise. That’s when one of the parents who held your hand when you were little no longer wants to be alone. It is then that the father, once firm and unequaled, weakens and takes two breaths before rising from his place.
It is when the father, who once commanded and ordered, now only sighs, only moans, and looks for the door and window that now seem so distant, that is when one of the parents, before good humour and worker, does not wear his own clothes and does not remember his medication.
And children can do nothing but accept that we are responsible for this life. Does this life that formed us now depend on us die in peace?
-Fabricio Carpinejar-
Do older people love children, in the sense that they need patience, attention, care, understanding and affection. Sometimes they may require our parental attention and protection, but that doesn’t mean we should communicate with them in childish language.
We shouldn’t treat them like they don’t know anything, because they’re people with incredibly rich life stories. Talking with excessive diminutives, simplifying language, using a child’s voice, or ignoring your ability to make decisions is a bad way to deal with them.
Far from approaching us and improving communication, talking to them and treating them like children is an escape and a withdrawal.
Therefore, grandparents do not need to be treated as children because that is not what they are, they are people older than by their age and probably because of various pathologies they have certain limitations with which they have to live.
Treating them naturally gives them the opportunity to accept their limits by recognizing their virtues.
On the other hand, it is important that we do an X-ray of elder abuse, which is much more common than we think, physical and psychological abuse are the protagonists of the relationship between grandparents and primary caregivers.
Not letting them make their own decisions in the affairs of daily life, denying them any assistance, offering them excessive or insufficient medication, neglecting them, and emotionally or physically violating them are the abuses that occur very often.
While the care of our grandparents can be exhausting, we must not forget that this sadness and tiredness is part of the pain that we must develop, it is part of the farewell, a farewell to a piece of our soul that belongs to them.
With them goes everything that we do not share with anyone and that will not be left as a witness, this certainly requires an enormous amount of inner work that life gives us the opportunity to do and that should not be in vain.
Because what our grandparents need is a lot of love and infinite patience, the two essential ingredients of the care recipe, both balms for your anguish and sadness for your lost skills and your farewell to life.