Simple acts of compassion...

Yesterday was a full on day, that followed a full on week...three rehearsals - Gold Company rehearsing The Worn Out Shoes followed by Alice in Wonderland at the West Yorkshire Theatre Dance Centre followed by a Halloween rehearsal - there were, as ever, lots of delights to be found in each one, not least the lovely addition of Calum to all of them (an actor visiting YTYT at the moment) but despite the full on schedule rehearsals were not what I finished the day thinking about.

En route from the morning rehearsal to the afternoon appointment Calum and I saw a lady fall and being one of the first on the scene we did what we could to help.  It wasn't much...the poor lady was very confused - although thankfully not badly hurt physically...we eloped her up when she was ready to move, made her comfortable, waited with her and chatted with her until first the rapid response car came to check her over and then the ambulance came.

The incident highlighted two things to me - one about human nature in general and one about how society is going to have to develop to manage an ageing population.

First for the observation about human nature - I have always believed that compassion is instinctive - that empathy is a quality possessed by all - sometimes we are better at tapping into it than others but essentially it's always there.  I also would have thought that a confused elderly lady lying on a pavement would be a sure fire trigger for compassion and empathy to kick in.  Consequently I was staggered when a busy shopper just stepped over the woman to get to wherever she was going and frustrated at the way some people talked to the lady...warmth in a voice, patience when asking questions, a smile and some reassurance make such a difference.  Demanding information and getting impatient when it doesn't come is not ever going to get the results the enquirer is hoping for.  There were some kind people there but not everyone seemed to have thought about how scary the world looked to that poor lady in that moment.

The other thing that was highlighted was how important it is that our elderly generation are cared for...not only in the obvious ways but also in a keeping themselves safe kind of way.  This lady had no ID on her...no house key, no nothing.  She couldn't tell us where she lived, what her name was...nothing...which meant we were so limited in what we could do...it was such a tragic set of circumstances...nothing she said made any sense - she skipped decades and subjects - forgetting her words half way through a sentence - the only thing that did have any real impact was whenever someone was gentle or kind...then she made eye contact with whoever had spoken and smiled.  It was so sad that the only thing that could be done was to take her to the hospital where social services would pick up her case and try to unravel the mystery of who this poor lady was and where she needed to be.

So I was left at the end of Saturday very much aware of the huge challenge that faces our communities to ensure our elderly populations get the care they require and also of the desperate need that despite the fact that lives are busy and demanding we need to remember that sometimes it is imperative that we remember one of the most powerful things we have at our disposal are the simple acts of compassion....

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Chloe's Leavers Blog - finally :)

Jeevan's Connections 2023 Blog

Arwen's Leavers blog