"And then he bit my Butt!"

 

 

My dear grandfather; never fails to retell the story of how my dear brother, at around 4 years old, had wanted to buy a certain Toy Chinese Sword (the plastic kind). Such was his fervent desire to obtain the sword, that he threw a tremendous tantrum towards my grandfather, culminating in a moment where he literally bit my grandpa's backside. 

I am ever so amazed of how my grandfather is able to retell this same story, down to its exact details (with words of exclamation and the final "Ouch" at the end), and tells it as if he is relating this story for the very first time. It is through such conversations that I am able to engage him now that he is over 80 years of age, before he retreats back into silent inactivity and the quiet activity of sitting at the corner of the house, smoking his cigarettes. 

On this topic of conversations, I sometimes wonder to what extent we are effectively engaging the elderly persons in our lives. Most times, we pepper our conversations with petty niceties such as "Have you eaten",  "what did you do today", or in my case, "did you watch the Man U match the other Day"; without truly wanting to know or bother about the answers to these questions. We reduce them to rhetorics that just serve the purpose of maintaining some form of link to these older persons, and to make ourselves less unconfortable in their presence.

How is it that we can sit in the same room, and yet seem to function at different planes of existence? As I sat at the same table my grandfather was also sitting in, I furiously pounded on my iphone all the things and activities that I have planned to do (meetings with clients, friends, appointments, etc), whilst at the other end my grandfather sat staring into space, within a dimension where none of the things that I was doing was important nor made any sense to bother about. Such is the power of context. 

And for that brief moment when he told me the story of my brother, somehow a connection was made, and both these aliens from their separate worlds were able to  communicate and interact without false pretence. In that flash, I am reminded of this person  I love, who had touched the lives of many others in his long life, and could now take time to sit back and excuse himself from this drama that is the world. A person that needs to be engaged and loved all the same, lest his position in this back seat become less of a choice. 

For me, I will continue engaging him in such stories of the past, for in them the connections exist. 

(of course, its also good fun to hear these stories in my  brother's presence).

 

 

 

Comments

[Shaun@Ancestry]

We never forget these stories that our ancestors used to tell us, sometimes repeatedly, when we were young. Unfortunately, inactivity is the worst enemy that the elderly can fall prey to. The fact that you have no reason for which to wake up in the morning can lead to mental problems and a deteriorating physical condition. On a more positive note, I found the story about your brother very funny, and the fact that you retell it in front of him makes it hilarious.