Sunday, May 04, 2008 Luab: Tread softly By Evelyn R. Luab Light Sunday
ANGER is never a healthy reaction.
Shouting, banging of doors, a flashing of eyes, etc. never speak well of anyone.
Sometimes there are built-in issues from childhood, which emerge and these erupt in a moment of anger. The words we release can never be unspoken again and they are etched in the memory of the recipient forever.
Any quarrel, be it big or small, brings stress. Health-wise, this is bad. I should know. One such quarrel left me tired and spent the whole day.
We "oldsters" (a coined word for "senior citizens") are ultra sensitive when there is a clash of wills between a young adult and us. We feel not only slighted because of our age, but because of the so many experiences we have already gone through in life. Somehow, being taken to task, or being castigated is no longer an option of any child toward an oldster whether he is 50 years of age compared to a senior citizen parent who is 80 years old or so.
People say time is a healer of wounds. Correct. However, when the "answering back," the criticisms and the "talking down to" become frequent, some oldsters will just slink away in silence and give up.
Let me share something with the young.
We, who are old, especially widows, have survived so much in terms of pains and hurts that we feel life has already given us our dose of thorns. Honestly, we feel that at our age, we don’t deserve anymore the arrows or even the tiny darts of what we call "insubordination," especially from flesh and blood.
We feel that patiently we have dealt already with whatever aches and pains thrown at us in the growing years of the family. So that we now would like to enjoy the peace and quiet as retirees.
I went down south last Wednesday. It was the first time I went back after four years. The trees planted by Department of Environment and Natural Resources along the road after Alcoy up to Bato, Samboan, are so fully grown. Both sides of the road are lined with such towering trees, which curve toward the road and form an arch. When one travels underneath these "arches," the peace and coolness that these trees give off are so refreshing; and a certain kind of peace is felt. Nothing beats going out of the hustle and bustle of the city. I liken that feeling of soothing quiet to the kind of peace we oldsters would like to enjoy in our lives.
The farther one goes out of the city, the more refreshing are the seawaters.
The waters at Boljoon and Bato are so cool that one wants to stay in the waters for a long time.
There is a softness in the seawater, its gentleness is felt in our hair. Our hair remains soft in spite of the salt in the water. Why? I don’t know. Again, that’s the kind of coolness and serenity we would like to enjoy in our old age.
We accept that many times we do unconsciously provoke this anger from the young because we can be very irritating in our old age.
We can be obnoxious, eccentric and hard-headed. I wish we weren’t. However, for many of us, we have already gone through the gauntlet of patience, understanding, heavy crosses in our younger days. In many cases, we’ve even given up our dreams, our own needs just so the family could survive. Is it really so much to ask for a curbing of the tongue of anger at oldsters? Like Silas the Jew in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, we too say: “We do bleed you know!”
We normally tread softly when it comes to relationships because experience has taught us that people have sensibilities. Perhaps the young, in their impulsiveness, their hurry to accomplish immediate results can remember to tread softly, too?
