The Third Age

The Third Age

By Leo Kee Chye

This documentary traces the life of four persons, each from a different walk of life, each has his own story to tell and each has a personal grievance to air. Despite their contrasting character and life experiences, they are here in this program as they share a single commonality. A commonality where they are both blessed and cursed by¾Longevity.

1999 is declared the International year for old people. The old people here refer to folks in their third age where they have finished main parenting and full time employment responsible. These four characters are in their third age; all wither reached or approaching their centennial. This program is about their life.

They are all over her face. The melancholy wrinkles, the brittle lips and the weather-beaten face are all solemn testimonies to the harshness and merciless of her life. At the age of one hundred and two, she is still at the pink of health. Although physically frail and weak, she still manages to get by without much assistance. Staying alone in her flat, she takes care practically of all her needs herself. Occasionally, social workers and her grandson do visit her.

When asked about her life, agony and bitterness appears in her watery eyes as she rakes up her painful and unhappy past. Married to a irresponsible, opium-addicted husband, she raise her 3 daughters single-handedly. All her life, she struggled to make ends meet and craved for nothing except the best for her children. She, however, was ‘rewarded’ with loneliness and the cruel witnessing of the departure of her daughters one after another. To her, her fate is worse than death. And death to her now is the best possible thing she can think of to have.

Bounded to a wheelchair, an old Indian man closes his eyes and brings together his palms as he prays to the God, Krishna. Approaching centennial, this wishes nothing other than to meet his maker. Frustrated and befuddled by life, he could not find any reason for his continued existence in this world. Put into the Old Folk Home by his son, the old man laments that his son has not visited him since nor make any payment to the Home. Nothing could be more unbearable and heartbreaking for a parent than to have his children abandon him. So deeply hurt is he that he vows never to his son again. Although he did not bat an eyelid when making that assertion, I can sense that beneath his unforgiving face is a yearning¾to see son. The camera crew manages to track down his son. The son explains that he realizes his wrongdoings but justifies that with his predicament he is on. Being in debt, divorced, unemployed, he is in no better position than many believe. He avows his love to his father. When told that his father has no wish to see hem, his head lowered. After some silence, he looks up and with his watery eyes, he reaffirms his love for his father and determine to sought his father’s forgiveness. If that is his true feeling, he better be quick for Krishna may soon grant his father the very blessing he longs for¾death.

An exceptional lady, at the age of hundred and three, a woman who, for all her life, devoted to only one man and only one God. That and that only are what she lives for. Aminah’s husband, the man whom she ever and only love, died hive months after their marriage. She did not remarry. She loves him a lot. Without monly, children and relative, no even a house she can call her own, she lives on as the memories of her husband and faith towards God fill the void in her heart.

Unlike the two before, this lady receives her longevity with equanimity and lightheartedness. Now, staying in a Old Folk Home, a place where she can have her friends and being take care of. What more can she ask for before she joins her husband in eternality, her face beams as she says that.

Rajabali Jumabuoy, who at the age of 98 still lives with fiery fighting spirit which bows to no one nor anything. A man who which recognises no such word as impossible, and accepts no such reality as failure. A self-made millionaire who believe in God, integrity and principle. Together with his amazing foresight, he amassed a fortune and is hailed as one of richest man in Singapore.

Nearly bald, partially deaf and a weak health, this man refuses to allow these to affect him much. He sees death as the inevitably and rightful calling from God¾something to be please not fear. Reported to be a stern disciplinarian, he sees and regards education with importance and reverence. Being deprived of it himself, he make an effort to see none of his offspring go without it. Today he boasts unreservedly but with no exaggeration that all his children have at least a degree; a feat or accomplishment he equates more than all his fortune. Indeed, he remarks judiciously, “You can rob a man of all his fortune but never his education. He died shortly after the interview but his spirit seems to live on as the Jumabuoy family still lives to his ideal.

This program touches a chord in me as I search for the meaning in life, not when I am in my third age, but this very moment. Nothing could be more pathetic and exasperating than to sit and wait for his hour to come. To me, longevity means little and as I always maintain, “Life is not how long one lives, not how much.” Or as Socrates once asserted, “An unexamined life is not worth living.”