All the lonely old people -- where do they come from?
By Chua Mui HoongThese two women knew nothing about plans to renew Toa Payoh, or of plans to redevelop neighbouring blocks and build new ones on the same site.
They sat at one table in the void deck of Block 146, Toa Payoh Lorong 2 -- companionably, but not speaking to each other.
They live in one-room rented flats, old folks whom society has passed by.
Madam Ong is 84, with one arm in a sling and has rheumy eyes that cannot see clearly.
She limps, the result of a fall several years ago.
Her flat is spotless, furnished with discarded furniture. She has a small television set, an electric fan that does not work, a dressing table, a chest of drawers, a dining table and a few chairs. Strips of linoleum line the floor.
This is a woman who has spent the better part of her life cleaning other people's homes, and now has only hers to keep in order.
She said she had a son, who died at 30 several years ago, and a daughter who has stopped caring for her.
She is dependent on no one in particular and hence on everyone.
Her neighbour, whose life is full of small disappointments, said Madam Ong received free food from hawkers and neighbours.
The neighbour herself, Madam Tan, is 76, living in the rented flat with her younger son, an unmarried odd-job worker in his 50s. She wears a gold ring and a gold bracelet.
She is fortunate -- she has four children. Three are married, however, and have their families to care for.
Madam Tan asked me wistfully how much I earn, where I live, how old my parents are, and who lives with them.
I told her how glad I am that my old parents are well taken care of.
It was sobering to realise that it has been only an odd turn of fate that granted my parents security and comfort in their old age, leaving others like Madam Tan to face an uncertain future.
All it would take are two deaths or three, and my parents, too, would be destitute.
You see them in estates all over this prosperous island.
Those left behind by the fast pace of progress, those with the ill-fortune to survive their children or who simply never married and have no children to care for them.
I have seen old men and women in estates from Bedok, Ang Mo Kio, Holland, Toa Payoh and Chinatown, many of them bent over with age and perhaps pain, pushing solitary trolleys and collecting discarded cardboard boxes to sell. I often wonder how they cope.
I am sure that when they were young and strong, some with children growing up around them, most never imagined they would be in such a destitute state in old age.
Of course, there are others who live tranquil lives, surrounded by children and grandchildren.
Next to the rental blocks are four blocks of three-room flats that house old folks who lead different lives.
I met a Teochew woman whose flat was the focal point of her six children's varied lives.
The day I called at her place, three daughters, including one who had returned from her Paris home, and three grandchildren were there.
One daughter lived in Bishan, and was willing to exchange her flat in what some call the Tanglin of the HDB estates for one in the same Toa Payoh neighbourhood -- just to be closer to her mother.
In another flat, three young children ran around and swung on door curtains.
A son and a daughter were visiting.
Then there is Mr Ang, a retired clerk, who lives in a flat with his wife and daughter. There were two TV sets in their flat, both showing stocks listings, new kitchen cabinets and toilets, and teak furniture that has lasted more than 20 years.
Mr Ang keeps busy, strolling around the estate, pedalling his stationary exercise bicycle, keeping up with the news and information and using computer programs to analyse the stock market.
I would like to age like him.
But if disease cripples me and death robs me of those who care -- who knows? I may well end up like Madam Ong, a discarded old woman living in a room full of other people's discards.
Copyright © 1998 Singapore Press Holdings. All Rights Reserved.
