The Rituals of Everyday Elderly People
When did I start becoming so matural to elder people? When did I stop being the little kid at their feet, running around and receiving fives in secret handshakes? When did they start looking to me for help? When did I become the bigger person? Aren’t those older than us meant to have all the answers? The secrets to life and closest to death. But they don’t seem that close to death. No, not at all. I watch them every day, their rituals and routines. The same as I. The same as when I was eighteen. I believe I was closer to death at eighteen than I am now at twenty-two. I used to write a lot about death. Concerning amount. Wouldn’t show these elderly people my writing. Oh god no. While I cringe at these older writings of mine from eighteen because of the language and format, these elderly folks would cringe due to the closeness. Closeness. Coldness. Silence. Shaking. I watch it often as they try to count their coins before giving up and asking me to do it for them. The quiet, shaky hand. As if picking up a single coin from the palm of their other hand is too much. It is too much. It would be too much if I showed them my writing. The queerness and religious guilt that often bleeds from my pen would not be something they’d take kindly to. Oh god no. You see, for their entire existence, our state and church have been so intertwined. You couldn’t blame them for their reactions regarding my stance on religion. No, you couldn’t blame them at all. Our country’s foundations are meant to be that of Paganism, but all of our books and elders, yes, even the elders before our current elders, all scream that it was Catholicism. You can’t blame them, you see. They’re so close to death you can’t ask them to change their ways. Their livelihoods.
The closest I was to death was at twenty-one. However, that is a story for another time. The second closest to death I ever was was at eighteen. Used to write all about death at the time. Knocking around my kitchen as I stirred my cup of tea. Extra sugar. Making themselves known by tapping on the countertop beside me. Keeping me company. Was quite angry during that time. Not that I remember it. They say eighteen is one of the most important years of your life, but I can’t remember most of it. Most likely for the best. Just have journal entries and scrapped poems to remind me of what I felt. Not angry at how close I was to death, but rather what they took from me. You understand.
Death takes from all of us. The elderly regulars in my Shop often tell me how they are on the way to a funeral, or I watch as they hear from another regular that their old classmate or an old acquaintance has passed. Sometimes two weeks after the person is already buried. They seem to take it quite well every time. Write their old loved ones in our little notebook for the priest.
I get really worried for the day some of my favourite elderly regulars pass. Like the older man who comes in every weekend, reads each newspaper we offer before picking one up and a single sausage. Always greets me by name, says my name is like the political party in England. We talk for a few minutes and look forward to seeing each other again next weekend. Or the lady who calls me sweetheart as I count her coins. I have a few favourites. I think it’s only natural. With their routines and rituals. Always coming in around the same time, some multiple times a day and buying the same thing. Rituals. Peace. Comfort of life when age is weighing you down, but it’s okay because you still have the same rituals from when you were eighteen.
Some extracts of pieces I wrote about Death and I, aged 18
“Most people in this world have a soulmate, someone who will be by your side through thick and thin. Typically it’s their lover or perhaps a dear friend; mine is death.”
“Because the only person to comfort me in my grief is death himself.”
“They say dealing with grief is harder alone, that death knocking on your door is louder if your home is empty. But what they don’t know is that death’s knocks are just as loud from inside the house; he taps and knocks on the cabinets in my kitchen every night as I make a cup of tea. He taps his fingers along to the beat when I dance ‘alone’ in my bedroom; the taps are just as loud as the knocks on the door, but I think over time I’ve grown used to death knocking.”