From A Landlord to Being Homeless To A Loving Elderly Care Home

         
The day I posted the blog on 26 OCtober 2013 (seen below), all I had with me was a sense of hope.

Hope to find relatives or friends of Mrs & Mr R.C Menon. Hope they will be taken home by their daughter. Hope their homelessness and state of abandonment by children goes away like a bad dream.

These hopes were not supposed to become a reality.

What came by is the biggest surprise for a materialistic society where the son and daughter of Menon uncle and daughter belong. There is hope for humanity in the form of ALL who helped to find the elder care home, Santhitheeram, who gave legal guidance, who contributed to the INR 50K needed to deposit and who accompanied them till their new home.

As I close the blog with this update, the last 18 days took me through roads, streets and lanes I never travelled before, threw up questions on the lack of respect towards parents in their old age, why people forget all the noise made when alive will result in silence when soul departs. What uncle and aunt’s children lost is the single opportunity every child gets in their lifetime: Give back care, love and compassion to parents which they showered on you when you were children.

Never seen before hands and hearts took this big fall of uncle and aunty in their sunset age, gifting them comforts of an elderly care home called Santhitheeram.

Between October 26 2013 and 14 November 2013, we had a surge of humane and genuine help coming from various quarters to get a home for uncle and aunty. I have to mention all the names and their role in my closing blog as you are all angles for mankind for humanity!

-          Sunil Venugopal, Tigy thankachan, Mili Francis, Smitha Sadananthan, Bismi Azar, Maya Gomez  and Sudheer Mohan’s friends Anitha, Priya Menon, Jayadas Chelur, Shiek Afzal for being benevolent with your contributions towards the Trust

-          Sreejith IPS, DIG and Head of Human Rights Commission who gave very precise guidance and timely support from other government agencies

-          ACP Hari Shankar, IPS of Trichur and ACP Jayaraj, Guruvayoor for having taken care of all legal formalities and overall charge of uncle and aunty from today

-          Mr K N Satheesh , District Collector Trivandrum and the District Welfare officer for giving their order as approval to shift uncle and aunty to Santhitheeram

-          Dr. Thulasi Bai and her team at Santhitheeram, who accepted them into their Trust for further stay, gave a very warm welcome to our uncle and aunty by waiting eagerly for their arrival

-          Tigy Thankachan who drove uncle and aunty from Trivandrum to Trichur in his personal car along with his assistant Anu and head constable Mr. Balakrishnan of Medical college police station, took care of their admission requirements, helped with pictures of their settling moments

-          Rajendran Uncle and Beena aunty for having driven around Trichur to check out addresses I had forwarded of elder care homes, having approved Santhitheeram and also promising to offer their services at the Trust in days to come

-          Aparna V, sister of my friend Durga Devi, who recommended Santhitheeram to begin with

-      My mom, Lakshmi Devi who ensured uncle and Leela aunty wore new clothes and bought saris, shirts, dhotis, towels and essentials to replace their old and worn out clothes

-          Bismi Azar, Maya Gomez from Inner Wheel club Trivandrum Blossoms who played very integral part of this initiative by being there to meet anybody and everybody we needed to get approvals etc.

-          All my Inner Wheel Trivandrum Blossoms club members who played a key part by supporting the cause

Please take care of your parents because you get them as your own only in this lifetime.