Spending a lot of time with my mother and grandmother during spring break, I have realized little by little what aging means: my mother is facing her mid life crisis and my grandmother is almost on the verge of becoming senile -- both my future self if I live long enough.
This morning during breakfast, my mom talked about a conversation between a woman who lives in the same apartment building. My mom and her are both housewives, but when my mom used to work as a language teacher, the woman used to ask her why she worked so hard. She asked how much she made with one lesson, and saw no value in keeping oneself busy for so little money. "We can't do anything much. We shouldn't expect too much from ourselves" she used to say. Every time, my mother thought: I'm different.
But now, she is having difficulties accepting the reality, that she was no different in the end. She was just one of the many housewives and the realization kills her with regret, shame and bitter feelings. I can say very little to her that makes her feel better.
On the other hand, my grandma had a very fulfilling life career-wise. But since she is not used to doing the housework (my mother always helped her with that since she was a child) she finds it difficult to do it now. She has also become increasingly forgetful. She still enjoys dressing up and cares a great deal about how she looks, and she also notices small stuff like the small pimple on my forehead (which she insisted was growing: "Are you just going to let it get fatter?") and whatnot, but spending time with her really teaches me what it means to get close to death. I guess it's a process of losing -- losing memories and skills/abilities and precious people you could share your memories with.
I felt slightly emotional as I watched her practice putting on her pearl necklace she had to wear for a funeral. Although we discovered that she could do it when she brought the clasp in front of her, she insisted she could do it with the clasp at the back and kept trying.
Looking at it from the other side though, it's the process of learning again, which rewards her (and those around her) with the joy of reaching a small goal every time she finds a way to overcome her new difficulties.
Life is maybe an endless learning process until the very moment death picks you up.
Are we always expected to turn into our parents or grandparents? Like falling leaves return to their roots or something like that?
返信削除Hm... I don't think we necessarily resemble our parents but I think there are certain things we go through at a certain age. I will probably experience my own mid life crisis (though it may be totally different from my mother's) when I reach my mother's age, and eventually face the loss my grandmother is in the midst of.
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