Taureef Mohammed

AFTER A certain age, you become invisible. It happens slowly, so slow that you don’t even know you disappearing. And then something happen and you realise you not there any more.

It happen to me when I was in the hospital for my hip. I see plenty doctors, but I don’t know if they see me. They see my family, my children.

But I don’t feel like they see me. I wasn’t seen. Nobody sees us. Invisible and irrelevant, although the topic is you. Old age is a hell of a thing.

Anyway, you carry on. You try your best to stay out of people’s way. You don’t ask for nothing. You don’t want anything. No Mother’s Day and Father’s Day gift. No birthday gift. No flowers. Nothing from Hallmark. To hell with all of that.

All you want is for people to see you, see that you still alive, see that you still in the world, their world. And it is their world, because you feel, like the Old Man in George Lamming novel, you feel like you trespassing, and you could only trespass if something is not yours.

You can’t move busy busy, but it seem people think you can’t move at all. You can move. You just can’t keep up, but them can’t slow down.

So you left to sit down in a corner in a chair, a rocker, day after day, rocking the days out. Anything else is too much work and too much hassle. And you don’t want to cause anybody any trouble. That is the last thing you want to do. You prefer to dead than to cause anybody trouble.

So you stay at home, where you hope to die. Life can’t get simpler than that. And when you reach my age, you want to keep things simple. You don’t want to cause anybody any trouble.

But let me tell you something. When you get old, is better you be invisible. Take it from me. Because the only other option is to be treated like a child. Yes, that is true. At my age, it is either people don’t see you or they treat you like a child. And I prefer to feel invisible than to feel like a child.

Like the other day, my son – he’s a good boy – he take me to a restaurant. The waiter come to take orders. You know the waiter ignore me and ask my son what I will have.

Well, as I say, my son is a good boy. He tell the waiter I can read and order for myself, and and how I have a PhD in linguistics. She then start to talk to me slow, slow, and in baby language.

My son wanted to bring up the PhD again. But he is a good boy. He didn’t want to embarrass the young girl. I feel sorry for the girl. She was jittery for the rest of the night. You know it really surprise me how unprepared she was to serve a table with an old man like me. I feel like I was the first old person to ever eat at that restaurant. And I too old for firsts.

I really try hard to have a positive outlook. I see all these stories about old people doing this and that. I remember Granny Luces. I feel I was on track to be like Granny, you know, if it wasn’t for this damn hip.

I try to be positive for the sake of my children. They worry about me, especially since their mother pass away last year. My son want me to come and live with him.

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