She said, “Hi handsome. My name is Rose I’m eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?” I laughed and enthusiastically responded, “Of course you may!” and she gave me a giant squeeze.

“Why are you in college at such a young, innocent age?” I asked. She jokingly replied, “I’m here to meet a rich husband, get married, and
have a couple of kids…” “No seriously,” I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.
“I always dreamed of having a college education and now I’m getting one!” she told me.

After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake. We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this “time machine” as she shared her wisdom and experience with me.

Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she revelled in the attention bestowed upon her from the other students. She was living it up.

At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football
banquet. I’ll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five cards on the floor.

Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, “I’m sorry I’m so jittery. I gave up beer for Lent and this whiskey is killing me! I’ll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know.” As we laughed she cleared her throat and began, “We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing. There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humour every day. You’ve got to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die. We have so many people walking around who are dead and don’t even know it! There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up. If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don’t do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am
eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight. Anybody can grow older. That doesn’t take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity in change. Have no regrets. The elderly usually don’t have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets.” She concluded her speech by courageously singing “The Rose.”

She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives. At the year’s end Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those years ago.

One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep. Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the
wonderful woman who taught by example that it’s never too late to be all you can possibly be.

When you finish reading this, please send this peaceful word of advice to your friends and family, they’ll really enjoy it!

These words have been passed along in loving memory of ROSE.
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This is a story that was shared by one of my friend, Arvind.

For parents, the journey is to take care of their children and mould them into loving and responsible adults. For siblings, the caretaking is for their elderly, with whom there has been a definitive soul connection. Then there are handful who incessantly take care of their family, friends and even colleagues, with much patience and with no expectations what so ever.

However, does the current lifestyle really allow us to take true care of our loved ones is what I often wonder. The more I think it looks like in recent times, as much as one wants to reach out to their loved ones, caretaking has turned more into a challenging task with mounting financial and social pressures.

When I look at the different sections, for example, working mothers with toddlers, there is always a risk of low quality child care. A UNICEF report I came across mentioned that although toddlers growing in childcare centers get exposure to education and social aspects; lack of close contact with parents can make it more difficult for the child to regulate his or her responses to the world. The same applies to the elderly, in terms of getting into psychological issues due to lack of connectedness with their siblings.

Against the backdrop of the economic development, the withering of the joint family system has resulted in a large number of parents caretaking themselves to the extent they can. Often, the younger generation and the demands of their job pull them away from their parental homes leading to long distance care taking. Caretaking an aging parent, while trying to handle other responsibilities is often as difficult as working parents struggling to provide proper care and attention to their child. Added to this, rising health care costs is also a cause of concern to the caretakers as there is a constant demand for preventive health checks and support services that need to be extended to the aging parents. With all these challenges, is it really possible to take genuine care of one’s elderly parents/relatives?

Currently, In India for example, 11% of India’s elderly live alone or with non-relatives. By 2025, it is estimated that 25% of those over 60 and 40% of those over 75 are likely to be living alone. Even if they live together, the elderly are overwhelmed by the new concepts of time and space, and as per the response of the Help Age Foundation survey, they still suffer from loneliness.

Tales of elderly abandonment now have become so common and most have seen or heard of at least one in their lifetime. I am witness to the loneliness of a lady in my very own neighbourhood who animatedly talks each time she meets me, about her son and daughter living overseas and her trips to Dubai and Toronto, but soon after turns to her door in lonely silence.

It is also a fact that many of the elderly prefer and are emotionally comfortable to stay at the home where they spent most life than to an elderly care home.

Advancements in science and technology has increased life expectancy of the elderly through superior medical help and awareness of personal health care. It has even bridged distances with families and friends to an extent, thanks to the connected world. However, quality care and personal time for children or the elderly family member is on a decline, causing caretaking in its natural form to be gradually fading away in many lonely lives.

1. iPhone: Apple’s iPhone has changed the way we live and work in many ways. For the seniors, while the ease of use is great, there are number of applications that help them which makes the difference  –  reQall, www.reqall.com a memory tool that helps in remembering and reminding things like taking medicines, diet, groceries and such, iPhone Sugar Tracker app that helps to track Diabetes with monitoring sugar/insulin levels and also get reports. Or even simple apps to keep the brain active and fit, http://iphoneapplicationlist.com/2009/05/11/brain-fit/
2. Telepresence: With Rovio from WowWee Technologies, (www.wowwee.com) , keep an eye on elderly parent with the ability to navigate about the house and communicate. An interesting add-on application that works via Rovio is Buddibot, www.buddibot.com that helps in scheduling a reminder, playing a message or even a song.
3. Elder Care Robots: Couple of companies in Japan and US like iRobot Corporation which makes the Roomba vacuum cleaner robot which is quite helpful for keeping home clean for the seniors, are beginning to design robots that could help care for seniors in the home.
4. Body Monitoring: Wireless band aids are being developed containing a sensor that measures things such as heart rate, blood pressure and amount of oxygen in the blood. The band aid can wirelessly transmit this vital signs data to a smart phone and from there to your doctor or your care givers.
5. Hearing and Visual aids: Few other interesting elder-gadgets  include Wireless hearing aids from Oticon and Amazon’s Wireless reading device Kindle 2.

Moving to the next generation, the kids are more and more getting tuned to the screen life as much as their parents do. Talking face to face with teenage child is specially getting tougher with the attention span shrinking at both ends. I keep hearing from parents that their teenage son or daughter is hardly talking to them. We keep recalling the stories of our older generations where all the family sat together to have dinner and spend quality time talking about the day’s activities, societal values and such.

How can we keep our families better bonded?
Few thoughts – Materialistic detachments would help simplify life; timely exit from work situations could be beneficial; planning vacations or even dinners without any gizmos around would help…..

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