Synopsis "Old Woman Demented"
You are born, live, and die. Sometimes, though, it isn't that simple. Life loops. Somebody once told me, you're born an infant, dependent for your sustenance e on others. Grow old, you revert to infancy. You have to be fed, diapered, washed and put to sleep. It's true, but not written in stone. Not all of us live to old age. Some die young with their complete mental and physical faculties intact. Others live long lives in relatively good health until the end. Not all become mentally and physically infirm. Yet, many do. Old age, what comes with it? Think of hospitals, nursing care, doctors, psychologists, clinical social workers, physical rehabilitation specialists, health care aides, rest homes, nursing homes, assisted living facilities, think of the panorama of institutions and institutional faces that await in all shapes and sizes. Experts appear from everywhere with their diagnoses and are followed by a myriad of medical foot soldiers poking and prodding. Bills for services are everywhere too, bills for thousands and hundreds of thousands spewed out in every direction. Confusion for the family. What to do? Who to trust? How to afford? Action. Determination. Institutionalization! How to tell their loved one? Questions, worries, dilemmas! Legal issues. A Power of Attorney? A Will? Property. Which of the siblings, aunts, uncles or cousins make the final decisions? Which makes the financial decisions? Which makes the ethical decisions? Fights. Greed. Lawyers. Courts. A person does not grow old in a vacuum. There's a universe that surrounds their aging. What becomes of the them in the end was written long before. In the case of the old woman, Eloise Tarikie, that life has been constructed along a dysfunctional foundation. That's the tragedy. Can Eloise end be anything but a dysfunctional representation of her life? The novel explores that and examines the problematic family she constructed about hers. If you take a good look, you may be surprised. You may be eyeing yourself and be shocked by what you discover.
