Living with old people for a long time can be both a blessing and a crazy experience on the other hand. You get to learn a lot from them and see the world in a different light and perspective, they teach you the old ways of wisdom with having to scribble on a chalkboard and in no time, some of the things they do or say may start rubbing off on you. However, old people may be oddly funny a lot of times without even trying so hard. A lot of things they do may seem very strange and funny but the way they carry on with those things makes it even funnier.
I lived with one my Aunties for quite a long period of time, let's say 6 years approximately. She was way past 70 then and of course she was just like any other old granny. She had stories to tell for every situation that comes up, they don't always have a moral lesson at the end of it but she'll want to squeeze in one or two lessons so it'll all make sense at the end. She struggled with some health challenges which came with her age and it can be tiring taking care of all her concerns. One of the things that I found really strange while living with her was, how she'll randomly tell me that she may not make it the next day.
It always comes on as a surprise, I might be with her the whole day and we can chat from morning till evening. Then all of a sudden, before going to bed she'll call me and tell me that her health is really disturbing her and she may not make the next morning. I'm telling you that this woman will tell me how to share all her belongings to her children, telling me specifically who should be the first to see her dead body and who should never see her dead body. 12 year old me. As if that is not enough, she'll tell me not to get scared, I should go to my room and sleep.
Is she been serious
How am I supposed to sleep on the knowledge that my Aunt is probably going to die?
Before then, she had previously told me how she wanted to die. She said she didn't want a stressful death moment. She just wanted to die in her sleep without having to go to the hospital or have her children waste money on her.
The first time she told me that she might not make it till the next morning, I freaked out so much and I couldn't sleep. I sat down all through the night in her room watching her sleep and snore. I didn't exactly know what my thoughts were, like I would be able to see her death and stop it from happening. I know I did it out of fear. Now here comes the funny part, tell me why this woman will always be the first to wake up before everybody. I got tired watching her sleep that night and drifted to sleep, only for her to wake up so early and ask me if I had been sitting all through the night. Most times, she wake up so early and ask me to prepare the fastest breakfast recipe I know so she wouldn't faint because of hunger.
Someone that was talking about dying previously
This happened so many times that I got so used to her talking about how much she wanted to die. I know one time she goes on her usual story of how she might not wake up the next morning. She gave me the 5K she had with her then and told me to give it to one of her daughters if she didn't wake up the next morning. Guess what? She woke me up 6am in the morning and told me that I should dress up, I'll be accompanying her to market to buy clothes with the same 5k she asked me to keep. That was the height of it all. I couldn't stop laughing when I was alone in my room.
I just couldn't trust anything she said about her death after that incident. I would always bring it up in one of our chats and we'll laugh about it. She'll be like "My dear, you'll not understand"
Please, I don't want to understand any death talk Ma, stop scaring an innocent child😄
I left her home 3 years ago after she got a caregiver and she's still alive till today so there you have it, the strange and funny.