Maintain Dignity With Nursing Homes

Inevitable fact of life - people grow old. And when people are THAT old, they tend to become more and more helpless.

Let's be honest because only in being honest, especially with the self, could we fairly deal with "life". In today's rat-race way of living, anything and everything that gets in the way and slows us down in our journey to our desired stature which we succinctly term our as "future" should be eliminated. But how can we do that to our parents? The parents who cared for us and nurtured "our lives" as if it were their own, sometimes even more than they cared for themselves.

There was a time when caring for our ageing parents was a simple every-day task. We just allot certain blocks of "our time" to caring for them within the house. And we needn't make martyr-like sacrifices to do that. But times change and we are now in an era where maintaining our elderly at home becomes such a huge sacrifice, that we sometimes end up regarding them as a "nuisance". But hey, wake up, man! Were we a nuisance to them when we were just little tykes who "demolished" everything in sight? When we peed and pooped anywhere we "pleased"? Did they really complain?

Whether we like it or not, admit it. We owe so much to our parents. And our direct parents to our grandparents. How are we to respond when it is their turn to be helpless? When it is our turn to "care for them"? We can, of course, opt to be shamefully ungrateful and leave them to themselves. We can just say, "It is their life... to each his own". But is it wise? What will you think when the time comes for you to be treated that same way by your own kids?

We need not disgrace ourselves by neglecting our own elderly kin. There are people who have made a vocation in caring for "our elderly". That is how nursing homes came to be. They even evolved into institutions that include special children and other such "cases" in their list of wards. They care for our "helpless" kinsfolk in our stead. Unsung heroes they are.

Nursing homes have professionalised to have service package options that give us the freedom to perform our jobs without having to be burdened with worrying for our helpless family members. They save us from losing time that we use to earn and sustain our family needs and more. They give us the chance to work and save some to be able to pay for the care they give to our aging parents or helpless kin. Our gratitude to man's ingenuity and natural compassion that enabled him to create nursing homes, the outside-the-home-care system that affords us to care and love as if we ourselves were there for our own.

Isn't life wonderful?