[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]“To forget the elderly is to ignore the wisdom of the years.”  – Donald Laird

 

On the 29th of September 2019, we paid a visit to the Sarana sevana Elders’ home in Mawilmada in order to signify the importance of the “International Elders’ Day” celebrated on the 01st of October. We had some dry rations collected to hand out to the home and we decided on spending a couple of minutes with the elders.

As always our elderly mothers and fathers never fail to amuse us with their wonderful stories of the past and about their own lives until present. Yet, once again as always their stories that began with so much joy ended with so much of pain. They told us how lonely they felt in the Elders’ Home and how they long to go to their families and spend their last couple of years with their children and grandkids. According to them, their only happiness is having youngsters like us visit and converse with them, hand in hand. We were caught by both disappointment about their situation and also immense happiness for being able to bring a smile upon their beautiful faces and fill a little bit of the void that was found within them.

The elders then suggested that they would chant pirith as a blessing to us and without even our knowledge we had spent a couple of hours with these amazing seniors who impart so much wisdom for life. We also realized that the dry rations that were donated had made no impact on them at all, but it was the time that was given to them that brought them happiness.

 

The visit to the Elders’ home is by far one of our favorite community projects and we look forward to opportunities to visit these wonderful set of people once again, as a family.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][apress_photo_gallery images=”5287″ image_gutter=”10″][/vc_column][/vc_row]