'Balay Taripato'

She is probably eight years old. She was propped on a wheelchair, staring blankly in space, but singing a tune, in 'la, la, la...' in the rythm of a folk dance, while her companions in the home walked past her. She was the first I saw, perhaps because of the singing. Another old lady sat beside her in a housedress, peering curiously at us, while we were talking to their caretaker. In front of her are two old men clad in pajamas, also in wheelchairs, silent. I could not tell what exactly they were looking at, but they did not look at our direction. To my right were two younger men, I guess sixty-something, one with a cane on where his left hand rested, the other, his brain trying deperately to will his right hand to go towards his mouth to eat bits of cereal. I saw his left hand holding a bowl of the cereals, but the hand was limp, immobile. Around his feet, on the floor, scattered about were the cereals which he was not able to properly direct to his mouth. I heard a moan somewhere, and through a screened window, I looked at an old woman from which it came, in one bed, one among eight to ten beds positioned in one room. The beds were covered in bedsheets clean enough, with pillows perhaps a decade old. 

A male caretaker arrived for his duty, went straight to the old woman singing, and asked her for a high-five. She gave him one. In the background, I heard a radio on, somewhere distant is the sound of a dog barking, and a television set turned in high volume. I was watching my friend, Leonelle, talk to the caretaker about five feet away from where I stood. When I walked in the home for the aged, I stopped and froze where I was. For some reason, I was scared to look around. I feared the desperation I might see. The caretaker and Leonelle came up to me, and we told them why we visited. I asked questions here and there, the answers to them made me sad, then, depressed, then I felt tightness in my chest. 

I really do not know the reasons why the old men and women were there, in this home. Maybe they have no relatives. Maybe their children are gone, went ahead of them. Maybe caring for them was too much, too expensive, too tiring. But I asked myself that question again, and again, 'why?'. While in other cultures, it was all right to place the aged in their families in homes, it is generally not in our way of life as Filipinos. Here, we take care of our old, until we are spent and weary, until we can. And that time when we give up on them rarely comes. I wondered, on our way road home from that place, if I would send Papa, Mama, Lolo or Lola to a home, if they were still alive today. I also tried to consider the possibility, that maybe my children would send me to one, when I start peeing my pants uncontrollably. 

I do know I felt deeply sad for them, the men and women I saw that day. The local government built the home to help them, tries its best to provide for their basic needs, and maintains the staff, I was told. I asked the caretaker, 'what happens if they die?'. She told me that the local government takes on the costs of giving them decent burials, the luckier ones are 'claimed' by their relatives. 'Claimed'. What a word. It's as if these people were baggages left temporarily in grocery shelves and left there, 'claimed' only when it is time. 

The echoes of the  'la, la, la...', I kept hearing in my mind while I was looking out the window of our car. I guess I will keep hearing it now, especially in my times of frustration and despair. Goodness, I am an idiot to even think I can do something about this problem. I can only pray for them, they who are someone's mother, someone's father, someone's brother or sister, someone's son, someone's daughter.