Getting old

The problem of working in an old peoples home, as I have done today, is that you come face to face with ageing, a process we all are engaged in.
Most people as they become old become childlike as their mental faculties diminish and, as a group in a home, they seem to reinforce each other in this aspect of their diminishing personality.

Talking to themselves or wandering around lost in their own private world seems an undignified end to a life, a life which may have been very fulfilling and one is reminded of how frail we are as we enter this final stage of life's journey.
Being just this side of old age, (although it's a mute point when old age begins), one is aware of ones own mortality in so far as being able to look after yourself and continue to present a reasonable face to others, of the person you wished to project.
Our self image and the self esteem we gain, is important. We rely on being able to match and move amongst our peers with some semblance of recognition which, in part depends on some measure of uniformity with others in the way we talk and act.
Old age lays that all aside. As we begin to fail to present the "me" of old, that self conjured image which is attached to our name we start to loose ourselves in a 'group' which itself is lost!
A child like personality which had been subsumed by our move into adulthood, begins to reappear and we become reliant on others to give us direction.
There is no way around this unbecoming phase in our lives, (other than falling under a number 42 bus), since society has set its face against assisted dying, one only has the opportunity to become slowly helpless!
Death and a graceful end is rarely on the cards. To often death is a decline into obscurity.
It's funny really, having banged on through the years,about "the respect we should have for each other", society funks the final passage with banal excuses.

Forgetting the actual individual, we prefer to hide behind "group speak", and avoid the issue of a 'respectful death'.

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