2023-07-16 23:45:33
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The body of former minister Roger Gbégnonvi was found in his room in Ouidah last week. The ultimate fate of this teacher, a passionate polemicist in the public arena, highlights the drama of the loneliness of the elderly in our society. Living becomes a burden or even a burden when everyone is gone and you have to manage ordinary life alone. Contrary to popular belief, this type of drama is more common than ever in our society.
A few months ago, a retiree in my neighborhood was found dead in his bedroom. He had been dead for two weeks. It was his daughter who, receiving no response to her many calls, came home to finally see that her father had been dead for several days. He lived alone, without servants. At the fateful hour, there was no one to help him. He was less fortunate than another retiree I know, an international civil servant living in Calavi. It was his caretaker who, seeing the light still on in his room, started calling him without answer at 2am. He pushed hard by phoning the maid, who ended up picking up. When the two entered his room, the old man was lying in a coma, in the middle of his excrement, after a hellish night. He had been the victim of an overwhelming diarrhea which had nearly killed him. It would have been done if it hadn’t been for the guardian. There again, a pensioner found himself alone, after the departure of the children and after the death of their mother.
We all run for the success of the children, without asking ourselves what will become of us if they all leave. Because they will leave sooner or later. In most cases, their departure even makes us proud. These successive departures pave the way for the parents’ loneliness. At an age where they need presence, attention. The age of old age is the age of disease, but also of poverty. The poverty of seniors is sometimes more dramatic than that of younger people. It intervenes at a time when the diseases of old age are on the increase. Loneliness, poverty, disease. This is the triptych that gnaws at the senile population.
Truth be told, most of us are doing “something” to ease this relentless rush. A friend told me last week how he had to bring his mother-in-law home to save her from loneliness. Especially since she began to develop sudden memory loss, a symptom no doubt of Alzheimer’s, the most terrible disease of old age. And to prevent her from getting lost in the neighborhood when no one is home, they had to release someone to watch her constantly. Because when the people of the third age no longer recognize their way, we all speak of witchcraft, instead of helping and caring for them. In this specific case, the man was nice enough to allow his mother-in-law to come and stay at home. Imagine if he had refused, claiming witchcraft or other things. And if it was rather his own mother, would his wife have accepted it like this?
Basically, the price to pay to avoid the loneliness of seniors is very heavy. To remedy this, there are now boarding schools that are set up. Our society is in full westernization. Our old village concessions where everyone takes care of the elderly are disappearing in urban centers. It is in these concessions that the children who remained, the grandchildren, the cousins, and sometimes their husbands and wives swarm. In town, all that changes. To succeed is to live far from parents. Here, everyone has their own house and lives their life with their small family. This is why retirement homes are already solutions. But most senior citizens I know don’t like them. But sooner or later, Benin will end up adopting this solution, which is no longer taboo in developed countries. On the contrary. Between letting his parents die in small fires alone at home or entrusting them to competent specialists, the choice is quickly made.
Olivier ALLOCHEME
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