Attention!

Habits of your younger years, that’ll keep on, following you, even IF you’d, grown too old, something that’s interesting to see here, translated…

After I’d served my military service terms, I’d had the mindset of giving back to the community, started volunteering, and went to the nursing homes to visit the elderly, they’d, taught me a lot about life in my interactions with them.

I’d gone to the nursing homes with the Buddhist groups, once a month, to bring the gifts, or to perform to entertain the elderly, and hearing them tell of their younger years.  The nursing home had two separate units, the nursing home unit was for those who can still take care of their living needs on their own, those who are mobile; the hospice was for those elderly who aren’t mobile, some had become bedridden a long time, some needed wheelchairs to get around.

Once as I’d gone to the hospice, I’d bumped into an elderly woman who was visiting her husband there, turns out her husband had a second stroke, and there wasn’t any one else at home to look after him, and so she can only, place him in the hospice so he’d be better looked after, and be treated and start on his rehabilitation, the volunteers carried on in conversation with the elderly woman for a short time, then, came bathing time, the caretaker pushed the elderly man into the bathroom, but, because he didn’t have any muscle strengths in his legs, arched his back, it was, difficult to bathe him, and so, the Vietnamese caretaker can only spoke in her accented Mandarin, “Grandpa, it’s bath time now, stand up straight!”, but he’d, not moved.

Like this???  Photo from online…

The elderly woman who was next to them saw, told the caretaker, “My husband is a retired veteran, he was in the services for over forty years, all you need to do is call, “ATTENTION!”, he’ll, immediately, stand up straight!”, the caretaker took her uncertainty, and called out, “ATTENTION!”, and, the elderly man actually stood up straight, lifted his head up, straightened up his back too, with his arms, next to his body, like he was, still in the army.

I too, am a veteran, and as I saw this, I couldn’t help, but smiled, but, I’d come to understand something else: as people have a habit, they’d kept the habit throughout their lives.  I’d told this to my wife, that if I needed to get bathed in the future, just say, “ATTENTION!” too.

So, these, are the habits that stay with us throughout the rest of our lives, and this showed, how once something gets ingrained into our minds, we’d done it repeatedly, we would, do the actions whenever we’re, stimulated to.