Gianni Berengo Gardin. Scanno, Italy. 1987 |
it grows only in the late season.”
(African proverb)
Lately the social condition of the elderly is a recurring issue. This pandemic has affected them, first of all, because they are weaker and already sick.
Being old has become an even more
painful weakness, because it has become the emblem of human transience, now
much more than usual.
Not only that, but with immense
bitterness it has often been heard of a choice to be made, by doctors or
regional governors, in previously treating young sick people, because time is
running out and hospital beds are scarce, therefore...
It's better...
With the modesty of not saying, but letting it be understood.
In recent months, terrible human
stories of deep sadness have been heard: elderly people left to themselves,
sick and without the possibility of being cared for by their children, or
giving them the last farewell before dying, because this evil not only
undermines the physical but also the social aspect, isolating us and enclosing
us in our solitudes.
Till death.
I have already written on the
subject of old age, and about my grandparents on Ferdinando Scianna's photo.
My parents are heading towards the
last phase of their life, and I never stop – every day – to take a look at
their skin, their wrinkles, almost counting them.
A great thinker used to say that the
secret of an intensely lived life is self-awareness. I try to remember this
every day, trying to impress every little variation in my mind inside and
outside of me, and on the people I love – my parents above all else.
Like when we eat and talk about this
and that, part of my eyes counts the wrinkles on my mother's face, and how much
my father's body tends to bend, the labored breathing.
And I feel pity, because old age is
one of the few things that is unstoppable.
Like a leaf that moves swiftly along
the current of a river, between rocks and whirlpools, as far as it should go.
So let's go back to mythology,
because sociology makes me sad, too many times I have studied on the essays by
Bauman and Galimberti, when I was preparing my degree thesis.
And I have already written about how
old age, like illness and death, is the garbage that the West hides under the
carpet of closed walls so as not to be seen every day, because it reminds us of
our inexorable destiny, which frightened the ancients. in the same way as
today: emptiness, absence, disappearance.
I have recently back to mythology,
as to the Indian gods, because when you feel the end approaching, it's better
to try to go back to the beginning.
In Greek mythology, Geras (ancient
Greek: ΞαΏΟΞ±Ο, Gα»
ras) was the god of old age. Seniority was considered a virtue
since gΔras endowed man with greater kleos (fame) and arete
(excellence and courage).
According to Hesiod, Geras was the
son of Nix, the Night, along with Nemesis (the Divine Wrath), Deception,
Tenderness and Eris (the Discord).
He was pictured as a shriveled
little old man. The opposite of Geras was Hebe, the goddess of youth. Its Roman
equivalent was Senectus.
These two variants of divinity gave
rise to the two words for old age.
Senectus has given birth in Latin sènex,
senium, senìlem, overo senile, that which ages, with the same
Sanskrit root sΓ nas, sanaka.
While from the Greek god Geras
derives gerontology, the science that has as its object the study of the
biological phenomena peculiar to senescence and senility, thus constituting the
doctrinal basis of geriatrics, which instead focuses its attention
essentially on the pathologies of senile age .
Heracles and Geras. Attic red-figure pelike, ca. 480-470 BC. |
How beautiful the etymologies; but even more myths.
The god of old age was born from the Night. I guess because, for the ancient Greeks, it was easy to identify old age with the latter part of the day, when the sun hides and darkness comes, and there is nothing more you can do but lie down and close your eyes.
“Eternal rest, give them, O Lord”
reads the beginning of the Christian prayer for the dead, which in Latin
sounded: “RΓ¨quiem aetΓ¨rnam”.
I have already told of the myth of Eos, the Aurora. Well, it is linked to the myth of Titone's eternal old age,
loved by the madness of the goddess who begged Zeus to give him immortality so
that she could love him all her life, forgetting, however, to also ask for
eternal youth, so that the poor Titone was condemned to an endless old age.
Reduced to the limit and looked
after by Eos in a wicker basket, he was transformed into a cicada by divine
will.
Funny, a cicada, which is the one
who sings during the day and in the scorching heat, but if it sings at night it
is a symbol of human frailty.
She became the muse of poets, who
sings beauty and transience, as well as Titone who never stopped singing the
praises of life, in an eternal aging.
It's no coincidence that the ancient
Chinese put a jade cicada in the mouth of the dead, as a symbol of human
immortality.
I would lose myself endlessly in this labyrinth of stories, myths, legends and etymologies. But, maybe you who read don't care about this.
What does the jade cicada have to do with my father or mother? Or poor Eos who, forgetting to specify her desires, condemned her beloved to eternal deathless old age?
It's just that old age is all of
this.
It is part of the myth, it is
something that cannot be forgotten in the enclosure of a nursing home, or
sacrificed to younger lives, because by now they have already completed their
journey, they are already at the end, so we might as well...
And we are silent.
Instead, it's precisely for that
long journey that the elderly must be venerated, protected, loved.
African culture is not my best, but
I love reading African proverbs collected by the anthropologist Marco Aime.
“If a child knows something, he
learned it from an elder.”
Say one of these proverbs, and it's
a great truth.
One of the African legends says that real life is one in which one grows old with time and never before time. A wisdom as deep as ancient Greek mythology.
When we are able to understand this
truth, in its essence, we will understand how much we have lost, forgetting our
elders.
Thinking that they are expendable,
to the myth of eternal youth and immortality.
In the meantime, I continue to count
the wrinkles on my mother's face at the table.
And with hers, I start counting mine
too.
Gypsies. Rome – 28 March 2017 |
READ ALSO:
Gianni Berengo Gardin: “Scanno – A country that never changes” (Baldini, 1987)
Marco Aime: “The breath of the ancestors – African images and proverbs” (Einaudi - I Maverik, 2017)
I'm crying read this post.
ReplyDeleteSo touching. Sad.
And make me thinking of my father and my mom, that i can't see their face everyday, can't have a time together now, can't going back to kampung.
π
Be strong...
DeleteRespect and love for old people, always ..
ReplyDeleteThanks π
DeleteNice, write with heart and from heart.
ReplyDelete... And wait hair π
DeleteI am deeply moved. I need to remain composed bec i just took few mins break to read this or else my eyes will be swollen. I am in emotional turmoil now,fear with mixture of regret for my mom and my loved ones.. That i might be wronging them due to my absence. I am out of here. π
ReplyDeleteYou did to give a better life for family, Bayan ikaw... You must balance pain with proud. Be strong π
DeleteNice words. I'm emotionally moved read this.
ReplyDeleteMythology part give me a good info n socialogy part rise self awareness in me to always respect n love older people.
Really good ππ
DeleteLet the wrinkles stay on my face...I enjoy my aging gracefully.
ReplyDeleteIt is not about trying to look like a 20s or 30s age...it is about living the very best of my life with all my loved ones.
And having the physical and mental health to enjoy the precious moments with them.
Because we never know...who and who will leave this heaven on earth earlier...they or me...???
So appreciate and love them while still last.
p/s: Due to covid19 I really miss my mama so muchπππ
"So appreciate and love them while still last.." Totally true π
Delete