Always do the things you want to do – even at an old age

At the age of 15 my mother went completely blind. She couldn’t work any longer, couldn’t save any money, and so I was forced to start working at that young age. We moved to Lesotho together and I managed to land a job working for a doctor, which turned out to be an amazing experience. In many ways, the job taught me how to survive, and it taught me to interact with people and to experience life under different circumstances. My mother was unable to do anything and so I was reliable for our survival. But I knew I needed to grow and because there weren’t many opportunities in Lesotho, I decided to move back to South Africa with my mother in 1970. At the time I was hopeful that things would change in the country. When I arrived back in South Africa I got married and my career took off. I got a good job in the newspaper industry and things were looking up for a few years. I was even blessed with a son. But then I got divorced and I was left as a single mother. I know in my heart that I had tried everything I could, but there was nothing else I could do. I stayed in the newspaper field for a while, worked for a number of papers. I also worked in the corporate field, for banks as well as for a number of large companies before I retired. Today, I live in old age home, something I never ever wanted for myself. I told myself that I would never live in an old age home, not because I don’t want to be around elderly people, but because it is so institutionalised. I think when we retire, we all want to be able to do the things we want to. When you live in an old age home, you can’t do the things you want to do. When you are so used to making all your life decisions by yourself, living in an old age home becomes really hard. You are confined by rules and there’s nothing you can do, and that is something really difficult to deal with. (Felicity Asvat – Johannesburg)