it's not in the age

it is 6.30 in the morning and my tranquil morning coffee time is disturbed by the ringing of the bells of the local jinja. an announcement in japanese then came on (i didn't fully understand the announcement but it somehow went like this) ;

"Ms. So and so has been missing since yesterday afternoon. She went out for a walk at around X time. She has gray hair, 130 cm tall, X kg. She was wearing a green X, brown pants, and a hat. If anyone has seen her, please call Mr.X at X number..."

when i heard this kind of announcement for the first time sometime back in 2006, i was immensely surprised. how could a family just let their old walk about alone? it would never happen in the philippines! how busy can a family be that none of them could be left home to look after the elderly? how lonely the elderly must feel; spending their days in dreadful routine of eating and walking about with no one to talk to and nothing else to do.

every time i see an ojiji (an old man) or an obaba (an old woman), with backs so hunched low because of osteoporosis, crossing a road or a street alone, my heart always goes out to them! once, i went to a burger place where the staff's uniform was green shorts, light green shirt and white sneakers, i was attended to by an old woman who could be older than my mother, and my mom' already 63! i couldn't help but notice how her fingers were so wrinkled when she punched in my order.

if only i could speak japanese, i would volunteer to talk to these lonely old people. they are fun to talk to. once i walked to work instead of riding my bicycle and this obaba who was from a place 30 minutes train ride away (that's what she told me) walked with me and we started to chat. although it was clear to both of us that we couldn't understand each other, we just kept on blabbing away! i wondered if she ever made it back home!

i used to want to rush to the elderly and help them until one day, i saw an obaba beating a younger woman who was just trying to help her stood up when she fell. japan has very strong and independent obabas and ojijis.

but strong as these old people may be, they must be terribly lonely with nothing else to look forward to, not even the yearly short visit that their children or grandchildren pay them with, not even the quiet kocha time in the afternoon when they can go back to the memories of their younger days; a past which will slowly fade away in time. nothing to look forward to but the coming of death. death which mercilessly doesn't come along until they are around 93. when they are eating away vitamins and supplements instead of food. when they are already so sick and alone.

my boss is 56 years old. he is single and basically lives in the office already. he goes to the office at 10 a.m. and leaves at around 4 in the morning the following day. he rarely goes out with friends and made nissin cup ramen his daily staple. when he got sick, i made him soup and would sometimes buy him take out just so he wouldn't have to eat the concoction of msgs and poor semblance of food. i would always stay behind for at least 10 minutes at the end of the day to talk to him about anything just so he wouldn't feel so lonely. whenever i go out of the office door, i would always remind him not to stay up so late and not to smoke. he would smile to me and say, "thank you" in almost a whisper. then, i would close the door, make my 30 minutes bike ride home, open my door to my empty apartment, tired, alone, no weekends to look forward to; i would mumble to myself, "loneliness doesn't choose it's prey."