Aging gets old very quickly

The late poet Chairil Anwar once wrote, “I want to live 1,000 years more!” My best friend’s parents balked when she said she wished they would both live to be 120. “Who wants to live that long?!” they screamed in horror, much to her dismay.

Long life and aging is very tricky. Whoever said “Enjoy your twilight years” must have been smoking a big reefer, or working for an ad agency.  “You can’t chop an onion the way you used to, or ride a bike without becoming a candidate for traction,” Nora Ephron said of the downside of aging in her funny and insightful book I Feel Bad About My Neck.

First, there’s vanity. There are people, male and female, who say they are looking forward to growing old gracefully. It’s a naïveté that can only come from people in their early twenties or younger. If somebody older says it, then it’s a lie. The first wrinkle or the first gray hair is enough to set the alarm bells clanging very loudly.

And there is certainly nothing graceful about feeling helpless, knowing that whatever you do, you will not be able to remember somebody’s name (hopefully only occasionally), cannot avoid wearing reading glasses or pull the same working hours as the young’uns do without feeling ill the next day.

Mentally, it takes some time to accept that some things are just different now, that the world will see you differently, and  – darn it! – some dreams will not be realized (the luxury cars, the villa in Seminyak, the business card with “CEO” under your name, polite and loving children, etc.).

Then there are the various illnesses which ultimately lead to the big, dreaded D word. How morbid. Speaking of death, it is particularly annoying that while one’s trying hard to keep Alzheimer’s at bay, the children are already fighting over the contents of the will. Selling their childhood home and splitting the proceeds seems to be a favorite topic among grown up children. It is obvious that life in retirement years is not like the comfortable picture painted by insurance and banking ads.

Caring for the aged is certainly not for the meek. It takes a lot, emotionally and financially, for it is such a delicate matter.  Even the rich are not spared, as the recent fracas regarding New York society matriarch Brooke Astor proved (a grandson sued his father over what he claimed to be gross neglect of the 104-year-old).

Old age still requires quite a lot of money, sometimes hard to cover from the dwindling savings, a small pension and “pocket money” from children who have to keep up with the demands of modern life. Although some institutions offer discounted rates for senior citizens, obviously some don’t bother to slash their prices for our elderly. Like healthcare. At that age when one starts to sputter no matter what and needs constant medical attention, the cheapest bed in a state hospital is Rp 50,000 per night, excluding all medications and the doctor’s fee. A typical operation to fix broken body parts, a common predicament among the aged, is approximately Rp 75 million.

Daily care is not exactly a pittance, either. A stay at a commercial retirement home can set you back approximately Rp 2 million per month. This is including meals, one’s own room with amenities and bathroom, nurses and a resident doctor. A stay at a state-funded retirement home is free, but only for those who are deemed destitute by state standards.

But in this country, for the most part, putting a parent in an old people’s home is a cardinal sin. The idea of putting an aging parent in a stranger’s care is simply preposterous! A child who does so is considered heartless because of the belief that the young must care for the old; even the elderly are mortified by the thought of spending their golden years in a retirement home.

Usually an aging person is accommodated by the immediate family and relatives, sometimes shuttling between several homes to be “fair to everyone”. With this arrangement, extra care is provided by the maid, or for those who can afford them, private live-in nurses. Not unlike babysitters, nurses are attuned to their charges’ every physical need, from feeding and bathing, changing diapers, to helping the infirm get around the house. And because of their 24-hour companionship, nurses also provide emotional comfort, too.

Of course, all this doesn’t come cheap. A nurse from a certified agency earns at least Rp 700,000 per month for her services, excluding administration fee, transport and food.

Previously employed for the sick or immobilized only, this service is gaining popularity for the relatively healthy elderly.

Yayasan Fatmawati, a Yogyakarta-based foundation that has been in business since 1982, claims that demand is steady (more than 50 nurses per month). It even provides nurses to homes in far-flung places like Papua, with half of their business coming from Jakarta.   

Even with the care provided by nurses, aging is not a pretty picture. After gaining independence all through adolescence, to lose it again because one’s body and mind just won’t cooperate as it used to do, and relying on others for even the most basic needs, could make even the sanest person lose their marbles. Seriously, Chairil, what were you thinking? 

+ Tyler Branaman

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