I wish I had read this book a few years ago. But then, I might not have appreciated it as much as I do now.

Why? Because I didn’t really think too much about aging or the elderly. Yes, I had grandparents. They were, in my then young mind, older people who weren’t really a part of my daily life. I can’t say that I knew them well. They died when I was in my teens. In fact, Tulasi, my mum’s mother passed at 62, which is younger than I am now.

I also didn’t think too much about care facilities for the old and infirmed. Because families, at least those I know, still seem to provide care for their aged parents and grandparents. My sister-in-law and her family provided round-the-clock care for her aged father, who passed last Thursday. So did my mum’s former palliative care doctor. She had her grandmother and great grandmother living in her parent’s family home. Her great-grandmother died, a year shy of becoming a centenarian. Filiel piety, extended families, and all that.

Naturally, times are evolving. The now and future generations may have other attitudes/perspectives about their parents/relatives retiring to nursing homes, assisted living or residential care homes, when they become too old to care for themselves. This is already evident by the burgeoning number of care institutions, and the increasing availability of bespoked accommodation for the old, and elderly in Malaysia.

As for me, I was/am old school. It was bandied about but a care home was not part of my consideration or equation. And, I could not envisage such a situation. Certainly not for my mum. I saw my mum as an older person. Older than me, for sure. But not elderly or really old. Maybe because she had a lot spunk in her. She was quick witted, and was the boss of me, in a nice sort of way😊. Actually, things only took a not-nice turn when she was about to hit her 88^th birthday. Yes, she needed help and support. Was slower and slept more in her early 80’s but she was, mostly, independent. My mum knew what she wanted and did what she could do. And, all the while, she was compos mentis and aware of what was happening with her and around her.

‘A Funny Kind of Paradise’ was an enlightening reading experience for me. It re-affirmed how privileged I was to be my mum’s daughter, always, and carer, particularly, as she got older and weaker. The book helped me understand how things were/are and can be for the cared and carers not just in an extended care facility but anywhere.  

Sad, acerbically funny, nostalgic, informative, and very real, the story is narrated ‘silently’ by Francesca or Frannie, an almost 70-year-old, who enters a care home, after suffering a stroke. She can’t speak. She can’t move, bathe herself or go to the toilet. She can’t dress herself or eat on her own. She is tube-fed. She is totally reliant on the rotating shifts of assigned carers.

The Frannie-before, was strong-willed, a little manipulative and impatient. A successful accountant, with her own business. But, a not so successful marriage and a not so successful mother. Two children. A quiet, good but not so happy son. A more vivacious daughter who disappeared.  A long-standing friendship with an owner of a diner, dead for two years, whom she continues to ‘speak to and share with, her life’s happenings’.

The Frannie-now, despite the loss of freedom and mobility, and recurring anger and frustrations, from not being able to communicate what she wants/ needs, wishes to live, and manages to do so amongst four other elderly patients.

‘The stroke has left me emotionally labile, and the feelings that I have struggled so hard to contain – or at least disguise in shrouds of anger are naked for all the world to see. I literally lack the muscular strength to suppress them. But here is the gift. I don’t care. I don’t care. My right hand is useless, I can’t speak, and more people have seen my bare ass in the last year than if I was a streaker at the opera because I need my diaper changed for God’s sake. Do you think I care if you see me cry?’

With time, observation, reflection, regrets, and conversations heard and overheard, she learns and realises, she needs to try to make right the not so right in her past. She gradually betters her relationship with her son. She forms genuine feelings of love and care for her caregivers. She even makes a friend with one of the patients.

Aging is not easy. ‘A Funny Kind of Paradise’ is a worthy read with useful takeaways for the cared, carers, anyone with older relatives, and the old and elderly.