Day 2: From Young to Old

March 22nd, 2009 by megan

Bright and early the next morning, I met some of my favorite people in Mattampally: the ‘elderly elders’ as Wilfred and Father George call them. Our program for the homeless and near-homeless elderly people of Mattampally provides two meals a day, bedsheets, new clothing, medicine and toiletries to the needy.

'thank you'

I wish that I could show you the first moment that the elders laid eyes one me. They had stayed after their meal to await my arrival, and the second I stepped out of the door they rushed to greet me, hands together in thanks. (Although ‘rushed’ may be the wrong word: many of these folks are handicapped with arthritis, leg injuries, and the cloudy-blue eyes of glaucoma and cataracts. Rushing isn’t something they do often, but the desire was there.)

There are about 22 elders that come for meals and each and everyone one of them came to me to express their thanks and praise to Hearts’ Cry and our sponsors. It was a heartbreaking and beautiful moment, as individuals and groups of elders held my hands and told me their stories. ‘I have no children to care for me’ one woman said. ‘My children have all died,’ spoke another. But a third responded, ‘Who cares if you have no children. We have children and they do nothing for us!’ One told me of a cataract surgery gone wrong that left her without one eye. Another broke her leg months ago, but it refuses to heal. She arrives by pedal rickshaw driven by an elderly man. ‘We have nowhere to live,’ they told me. One has a home but her daughter-in-law beats her. Others live with distant relatives too busy and too poor to care. They have lived long, painful lives laboring on farms they don’t own for meager wages and now, in their final days, they have no one to care for them.

But, they said, now someone does care. Now they eat hot meals. And they have a place to rest and to meet with friends. Now Wilfred gives them their medicine. A woman showed me her belly, its dark, wrinkled skin exposed under her saree, to prove that she’s become fat! She said that she’s stronger now and that she can walk faster. She told me ‘thank you, thank you, thank you’ until another woman shooed her away as if she’d gone too far. The women tugged at the corners of their donated sarees and showed me their washed and oiled hair, their clean skin. They mimicked the cots that they sleep on to express thanks for the bedsheets that Hearts’ Cry provided. In turn, they all gave their thanks and praise and sent their wishes to their donors. Finally, they lingered for a few more moments and headed to the places that they call home; whether it be a cot in a distant relative’s home or a thatched roof shack in an alley, they ambled on.

I have never seen such heartfelt thanks and appreciation. These wise old men and women whose lives have been so hard really know what it means to live without, and they know what it means to give. Many have given their lives, their youth and their health to their families and have received little in return.  The elders’ stories were so amazingly touching, and after this first day with them I tried to spend as much time as I could just listening (even without a translator- they didn’t seem to mind) and recording their stories. You’ll see and hear them in my upcoming mini-documentary.

Weeding the Community Center garden.

strong and silent

Singing her praise.

keeping his distance

aging gracefully

Tags: Charity, clothing, Elderly, hot meals, India

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 22nd, 2009 at 1:21 am and is filed under news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.