From April 6th, I had started my service at Sijiqing nursing home. There, I met many friends in common and lots of lovely old people. Thanks to my experience of looking after my elder parents, I could easily go into the role. My first one-to-one service person is Grandpa Li. Actually, when we were distributed at first, I expressed my wish to attend to Aunt Wang, who was paralyzed and bed-bounded. I though companying her would be more interesting because she had a higher cultural layer and was fond of music. However, I wasn’t come for my interest, thus to know more new old people and start more services are also what I’d like to do. Therefore, I told my group leader:“I will obey your arrangement and accept anyone you give me.”
As a result, I have been severing Grandpa Li since the very beginning of my third-time service. Grandpa Li was a 5 protect door without a lot of knowledge and children, I’d never contacted this kind of people before. Though my first service, I found out the problems: very few topics to talk about, his lacking of passion for the life, which I found later was actually a common problem among old people. I brought these problems to the group discussion after the service and put it in our group’s blog as well. After serving for several times, I gradually found a solution: Avoid talking about issues of life and death; tell him more new things or goods he had never seen before. Take my cellphone for example, he was confused when I heard the ring of the cellphone but did not answer it. Therefore, I told him about short message and let him know it could save money. It was really amazing to communicate with people without any telephone wire in his eyes. Sometimes I may also recall things he was familiar with, such as mending shoes. And then let him identify whether my shoes and bag were made by real leather. Besides, the tone is very important. As he is my elder, the best way is to treat him is the same like the children to their elder father.
Now, he would like me to be his niece, which maybe the best award for a volunteer. Aunt Wang was my second service recipient, though we had only met four times and spent a very short time together. She passed away quite in a sudden and it brought me great sorrow. I chose her voluntarily after I read her material. She was an Overseas Chinese, which made me feel intimate, for my parents were also Overseas Chinese. The moment I saw her, I feel surer that my choice was right. Her figure and accent of typical southern people was like my mother’s very much, and even their ages were of the same. She had a miserable lifetime. And her husband passed away at an early age, so she had to nurture two kids all by herself. What’s worse, one of them was mentally retarded, another one had uremia now. Despite of bitter life, she had a mighty heart and was fond of her life. I learnt quite a lot from her. And what I can do now is to accompany with her to reduce her loneliness.
