#亲情抉择: Helplessness and thinking about old age#
Today I would like to share a true story about old age, and perhaps we can find some commonalities in each of our lives.
My second aunt is 82 years old this year, while my father and mother are 83 and 81 years old respectively. The three old people live together, and although their lives are ordinary, they are full of family affection. The three meals a day are carefully managed by my mother, which adds a lot of color to this small family.
However, life's uncertainties are always unexpected. Last month, my second aunt's husband passed away, and for 13 years, he was paralyzed in bed, and my second aunt took care of him alone. Eating, going to the toilet, all the chores of life are solved in bed. In the past two years, my second aunt has become more and more difficult to manage due to her advanced age, so she decided to let the children take turns to go back to help.
She has seven children, two sons and five daughters, just like my family. In December, my 83-year-old father proposed to take my second aunt to their rented house for more than 20 days. However, this plan did not go on because my mother had too much diarrhea in a short period of time and eventually returned to my second aunt.
In just two nights, my mother got a little better, but she returned to my second aunt again. Faced with such a situation, my third aunt took her to her home for a night, but because she was not comfortable, she finally decided to let her eldest child take her back to her hometown.
In fact, my 83-year-old father once wanted my second aunt to retire in their rented house, thinking that it was the most suitable place to spend the winter with heating. However, since this was the son's house, I was afraid that the daughter-in-law would be unhappy, and for other reasons, in the end this plan was not implemented.
I was a little reluctant to do this, after all, my mother is 81 years old and needs to be taken care of. My 83-year-old dad thinks that he usually doesn't work, but his mother takes care of everything, and it's tiring enough to serve one person, and it's a bit reluctant to serve two more.
Although the house they rent is old, 800 yuan a month, for my father, a retired teacher in the countryside, the monthly pension of 4,000 yuan is enough to pay. However, it's not that simple.
My second aunt's eldest son is also a rural teacher, and his monthly salary is as high as 7,000 yuan, which surprised me. Although their home is unheated and most of their children rent outside, they own two or three full-payment houses in the county. And our sisters are all borrowing money to buy houses, and it seems that they live in the city, but in fact they are not as comfortable as others, after all, they are burdened with the pressure of loans.
I think my second aunt actually wants to spend her old age with my mother. Although she stayed at the other children's house for two days and left, she could stay with my mother for three or five days, ten days and eight days, but it was not good to stay for a few months. My third aunt was in a hurry to leave when she returned to her parents' house for a week, for fear that my parents would be critical of her sister-in-law's children. After all, it is normal for husbands and wives to be together for a long time and have conflicts over trivial matters, and I dare to say that no matter who it is, including their own children, it may not be good to go back to their parents' house for a long time.
They have a lot of sisters, and they won't let my mother live with me for the winter. Although her children are a little strange, the monthly salary is high, but she does not install air conditioning in the house to warm her mother. They also considered letting my mother live with my mother, saying that they were very relieved. But I don't think it's appropriate, because my parents are old and need more love. What do you think?
This is a story about family choices, and the thinking in the years may be the most genuine care among family members. In this pluralistic society, every family is looking for the best solution for old age. I hope we can discuss this issue together and bring inspiration to more families.