The Golden Girls

Ever had the experience of surfing the channels on TV and accidentally stumbling upon a program that opens up a floodgate of emotions in you, emotions that have been simmering for long under the surface and that you've consciously pushed to the back burners in the process of living your everyday life? Well, that's what happened to me a couple of days ago. Little did I know that a click of a button on my remote control and watching a bunch of old girls and their merry escapades would leave me sobbing out of control and crying my heart out by the end of the show!

"The Golden Girls" is all about these senior citizens living together in a Florida home, their fun adventures and humor-ridden lives as they go about their business of keeping themselves engaged and finding meaningful relationships in life. A very old sitcom that was quite successful in its day and is still enjoying several re-runs in North America, I was quite jolted by this particular episode that I accidentally chanced upon. Sophia, Dorothy's mother on the show, strikes up a friendship with an old gentleman on a park bench. They initially fight for space on the bench, grow to accept each other's company by and by, and eventually become friends, until one day the old man doesn't show up. Sophia waits for him everyday and becomes increasingly agitated by his absence, until her daughter tries to find out his whereabouts. Dorothy meets the man's daughter who tells her that her father's Alzheimer's had become progressively worse that he could no longer be left on the streets alone and had to be sent to a nursing home, and that he could no longer recognize anyone from his life.

By the end of the episode, I had torrents of tears coursing down my cheeks, as I was reminded of my mother who suffered from Alzheimer's and passed away a year ago. Having suffered a stroke that had left her right side completely paralyzed, my mother quickly lost sense of her surroundings and the people around her. Towards the end, she could no longer recognize her own children. It's a terrible tragedy for a child to watch one's mother being reduced to this condition, the mother who taught the child so many things in life. Talk about reversal of roles ... the parent cares for and nurtures the child, and when he/she grows old, the child becomes the caregiver and the parent becomes entirely dependent on the child. The heartbreak is inevitable, the feelings so intense, and the emotions so profound, turbulent and life-altering! I keep pondering a lot about old age these days and my only prayer now is that God be merciful to all of us in our old age and take us when all our mental faculties are intact!