My memories come from a long disappeared age: the First World War.. I \was just a child when my father went to war and my mother was left all alone to raise 6 small children, me being the eldest; I experienced being cold, hunger, tired… Then we started to carry wounded people behind the front, to the hospitals. It was then when I got so afraid of death and the fear that my father could some day not come back home haunted me every day; we were constantly looking up the lists with dead and wounded people.

One day I helped into the carriage a soldier that looked somehow familiar to me. When I came closer I realized it was my father – this was a tremendous shock to me; I was 13 and I carried him to the hospital knowing that there was little hope for him. I asked the commander to give up my horses and my carriage and to let me turn back home. After desperately begging hi, he finally allowed me to leave. I ran with all the strenght I had back to my village and, after telling my mother about everything that happened, we both left for the hospital to see my father. . He was allowed to turn back home with us, but he didn’t survive long after his return home. So much suffering and pain marked my life, so I asked my mother to let me go to town, to study, and I never came back home but only for visits or to help them out. I fought on the front during the Second World War, but God helped and protected me to live to this day – I’m 89, I live with my daughter and her husband, but still, being alone is such a burden…. During the nights I often relive images of good and bad things I went through and I pray to Good that he should help ease my last years. I often feel so sad that not even the sun or the sounds of the living nature outside cannot change my spirit, even if I have my children to take care of me. But still, I thank Good for everything I have been through, everything I had.

N.A.

When I entered the ProVita day care center I started to remember with great joy the years of my youth. Just like these young women taking care of us, I also used to be a social assitant. I did my job and enjoyed, hoping that, in my late years, somebody would also take care of me in the same professional, caring way in which I treated my elderly patients back then. Social assistance was a very difficult job to do during those years. But today it seems even more difficult to do. I remember, when I worked as a social assistant I had to go quite often to various places in the country, where there were a lot of problems due to the fact that young people wanted to leave the country side, but their parents didn’t have the financial means to offer them a life in town, or the possibility to go to a decent school, or, in some cases, they simply couldn’t accept the idea that their children might want or get to do something else then they did with their own lives, during a life time. It was very difficult to help these kids. Some of them were very intelligent and came to prove, after several years, that the trust and resources invested in them paid back and were not in vane. This is still a great joy for me
Another thorny problem of the society during those ages was that there were a lot of old people that didn’t have children or any other relatives; these people didn’t have the chance to stay in homes or institutions like the one’s we have today. Elderly people weren’t able to work anymore so, especially after communism came to rule the country, they were left outside the society, who didn’t consider them as being one of its responsibilities. I often felt very bad about the fact that people who had worked during a life time were not allowed to live their last years in dignity and honorable conditions. They were generally brought to so-called elderly people homes, where they were totally isolated from the world they were used to and knew, away from the few friends they had had during a life time. Many also suffered from being taken away from the things they had gathered during a life time of hard work, things they had to sell in order to survive. For these people, who spent in such institutions their last years or months, it seemed very much like in a prison. I remember a very nice old lady who suffered tremendously when she had to give up her dog. We were able to find a family kind enough to want to take the dog, we took the old lady to that family to see for herself where her dog would live, to ensure her that he would be properly taken care of and loved, but she still remained very sad and feeling lonely. There were very hard times, we saw human suffering every day and couldn’t but rarely offer them an alternative. I would have been very happy if , back then, when I was working as a social assistant, I could have had the possibility to take care of those people in their own homes, in the environment they were familiar with, next to people they new and loved. Now it is me that is old and needs to be taken care of and I must say I definitely understand those people better now, their pain, and I feel quite fortunate that modern society has, in a certain way, changed its point of view and mentality concerning elderly people, who aren’t seen today just as burdens, but are helped to live a normal, dignifying life during their last years.

D-na I.