The Way I Would Like To Die.
This is the way I would like to go. If you must know.
I would like to go while still young. While the dew is wet on the grass;
To perish in a great air-crash. With a silver plane burning bright.
Like a flashing star in the night. While the huge wreckage all ablaze.
Shines brightly for my last embrace. I will like to see the flames consume.
Each nerve and bone and hair and nail. Till of dust naught but ash remains.
But if I should hear someone wail. Because dust has gone back to dust.
Mad and fury, I shall return. To smite the poor wretch on the head.
Mother, do not grieve when I am gone. This is my wish; I’d have it so.
This mere burden of flesh was I. Whom you loved and tended dearly.
(The Way I Would Like To Die. A poem by R. E. G. Armattoe.)
R. E. G. Armattoe was born in 1913 at Denu in then Gold Coast, now Ghana. When he was 13 his father sent him to Europe to complete his studies. He became by profession a medical doctor and worked in Northern Ireland for ten years. He returned to then Gold Coast and saw his parents so old, and had had repeated strokes, that they had become vegetables. He wept inconsolably at his parents pathetic conditions, that he prayed for them to die so as to end their sufferings and misery. That was when he wrote the poem above – “The Way I would Like To Die”, and prayed to die young and through a plane-crash. So as to spare him the agony of getting old, and suffering some infirmities.
Now, let me tell you, the origin of the topic above. An old friend and a colleague, a fellow retired Permanent Secretary came to my hospital in Umuahia two weeks ago. He wanted to know if he could go home and bring his father, to the hospital for review. The father had come from the village the previous day. When I asked what was wrong with his dad, he said, and I quote, “my dad is suffering from old age”. I was mad. “Come again?” I shouted. “Are you out of your mind. Your father is suffering from old age. Please tell me, what illness is that? For your your information – old age is not an illness!. I now exploded, and with expletives, I gave him a piece of my mind. When he saw I was very hurt by his choice of words. He apologised profusely, and said he was only cracking a joke.
We know as we age baring any complications from chronic illnesses like hypertension, diabetes or rheumatoid arthritis, majority of people age fine, but some manifest diminished functions, appropriate for that age. So my duty in these two-part-serial expositions, is to let elderly people know, what diminished functions are appropriate and normal for each age, so that if it deviates from expectations, they would alert their doctors.
What are the expectations of ageing and the society?
1) ♥ According to research on “Man’s Body”, by the “Diagram Group”, changes in temperament and behaviour in old people may be accepted as inevitable. But how far they are really due to neurological and mental deterioration is often hard to judge. The changes may rather be a psychic reaction to the person’s social, psychological, and physical situation.
2) ♥ Old age often brings with it, a dramatic change in a person’s experience of life. a) Declining physical ability and efficiency. b) Perhaps involving being looked after by others. c) The end of the working life. And d) Isolation, due to the disappearance of work contacts, family, mobility, and death of friends – all these can affect an old person’s self-esteem, and lead to depression and melancholia.
3) ♥ Old people find that they have no role to fulfil, and no social label or way of identifying themselves, other than by that derogatory term, “old man or woman”. The associated stereotypes of which are not inspiring.
4) ♥ Society’s subtle message can seem the same: you are no longer really useful, and though you are enjoying the deserved fruits of your labour, your difficulties and incapabilities are something of a problem for us.
5) ♥ Of course, many old people keep up a wide range of active interests – but for others it is difficult, due to lack of finance, isolation, pysical incapacity, and lack of mental stimulation.
6) ♥ The rate of change in modern society, adds to their disorientation; and the way of life in many extended family homes do little to help. All this, can result in apathy, listlessness, resentment and mental stagnation, which others then dismiss as inevitable senility.
Kharmic Caveat.
There is an unwritten law of retributive-justice, which states that if we neglect, abandon or disrespect our aged father, mother, uncle, aunt or relatives, maybe hoping to compensate the society with a befitting glamorous and obscene burial. That somehow we harvest the same treatment, when we are old, in equal measure, or even worse. Here is an order to all us, “if you have any living aged relative anywhere in the world, get up now, take action today, in cash and kind, and make the remaining part of their lives better. Or your conscience will flog you forever”.
Next week we shall discuss character changes and disorders of old age and how to handle them.
Please follow me on Twitter; @_DRSUN.

Related News