Jacqueline Colaco, a feisty 68, does not permit the senior citizen tag to prevent her from pushing her boundaries, acquiring new skills, participating in a range of community activities. She is active on Facebook and has even shaved her head in empathy with her school classmate who was on chemo for cancer!
Be ever young at heart.
At sixty I thought I’d retire from life...
Wanting to go into oblivion with a bang, I gathered about two hundred of my nearest and dearest and celebrated this diamond birthday amidst their love and affection, returning it with a gift of a potted plant as they left the venue, hoping they would remember me as the plant regenerated itself while years passed. However, fate seems determined that retirement from activity is not for me despite being struck with fairly incapacitating Rheumatoid Arthritis at age 37 and epileptic seizures since a decade.
Facebook at Sixty
Little did I realize when I reached home, I’d be forced into regenerating myself on that very day. No sooner had I changed into casuals and begun to ready myself mentally for the innings of relaxation after my 60th ‘do’, a call came from Nyna my US based niece urging me to open up my computer and log into Facebook. Literally thrust on me the day I turned sixty, was this Facebook page in my name, gifted by my loving niece, containing sixty ‘posts’ from ‘fans?! Nyna, had gathered these messages from among family and friends around the world! I had vaguely heard of FB till then, but had not a clue how to even open the page. A young friend came to assist and instruct me how to administer it. Today, with the savviness I exhibit with not only my daily posts and relevant pics shot with my own camera, you’ll presume I’m ‘lady and ms’ of the FACEBOOK, surely warming the heart of young Mark Zuckerberg. God bless him and Nyna for this pastime eight years down the line! I’ve even graduated to holding ‘face to face’ tea parties with my FB pals now and again, where we meet over homemade delicacies conjured up by each. I’m usually the one assigned to compose the quiz and an action game, so my brains keep young and ticking away. It makes for a couple of hours of great fun for a normally housebound person like me, and other old folks we invite.
Community Participation
When I look back on almost a decade since I legally became a senior citizen, I feel sometimes overwhelmed and amazed at what new tasks I’ve tackled, despite my ill health, living independently and facing challenges a plenty for sure as age adds up. However, some years ago I organized and led from a wheelchair, three annual Bangalore Walks and Meets under the auspices of the Global Walk for India’s Missing Girls as part of the movement www.petalsinthedust.com movement against female foeticide/infanticide, a big concern of poor sex ratio in India.
In May 2018 I’ll be into my 11th annual participation in the ‘Wheelchair’ category of the Bangalore TCS 10K Run to raise funds in the Charity Event for a Disability Organisation. Never mind that I have to rise at dawn (comes naturally at this age, doesn’t it?) to get ready and be at the Stadium by 6.00 am. Sporting traits die hard in one, and this for sure is the case with me, being a former India hockey player. I enjoy being ‘Queen of the Road’ on this morning, as these hours are kept traffic free. I feel specially honoured too for my age and despite my disability to be respected as a person of WORTH and ABILITY! This event offers me a platform to speak with press and people about the need to mainstream PWDS. Otherwise, there is no place out of our homes for folk like me, with the disabled unfriendly infrastructure we have in India. A feather in my cap too has been the awards of highest fund raiser Care Champion among women having collected Rs.10 lakhs in 2012, from my personal well wishers, by my participation in the run. In 2017, I similarly won the ICare award for highest individual fund raiser in this category. Saturday noons see me in service at a soup kitchen offering a meal to the hungry homeless. I fund raise as well for this cause.
Can you imagine I shaved my head too for the first time in my life at age 61?! I only found the guts to do it as a senior citizen and in empathy with a school classmate mate who was losing hers as the effect of chemotherapy. I repeated the act in celebration again a year later when she was declared as cured. Yippee, as she is still doing excellently!
Life in a Senior Citizen Community
Almost three years ago I moved into a Senior Citizen Community. It is a serene and green campus with nearly a hundred residents of various backgrounds, giving me ample scope to prove myself a people’s person, ready to lend a listening ear, a helping hand, to be a friend in need, as also in deed. For brain agility, I attend a book sharing once a month, which has encouraged me continue contribute to my talent to turn out ‘middles’ related to real life experiences.
Cheery Attitude
In old age, one can choose to be cranky or cheerful, despite the odds! Difficult days will be many, but will pass. A cheery attitude can remain constant. My experience is that if you smile, the world does smile with you, cry and you do cry alone! When you need help genuinely, ask for it, and you will receive it. Do not beat around the bush, nor indulge in self pity or grumble. Be as independent as possible but not irrationally so. Be realistic about limitations of physical abilities of aging and do not attempt foolish pursuits ending in disasters, putting the burden of broken bones on care givers. Then unpleasantness of “I told you so” sets in. Avoid these confrontations.
Remain ‘young at heart’ and the ‘mind will match’! GOOD LUCK!
If you know any other examples of active seniors, please write in to us
