Throughout both my practicum in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and the first month of my internship in Hospice, I've had the chance to observe human life at both ends of the spectrum - birth and death. This week, I've been making a lot of transfers, specifically regarding the parallels between infants (and children) and older adults. As we age, we tend to gradually lose the ability to perform Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), and therefore regress in a sense back to an infant-like state. I was aware of this prior to my internship, but interacting with older people on a daily basis for over a month now, I have really begun to see just how striking it is. However, this brings me to an important point. Just because an elderly person has lost their ability to communicate, feed themselves, ambulate, and perform other tasks, they should not be spoken to or treated like children. Watching elderly people being cared for by their children with such love and devotion has just made me realize how oddly beautiful life is. We start out as infants, unable to fend for ourselves in the world, dependent on our caretakers for raising us and helping us grow physically and emotionally and we leave the world (if death occurs naturally) in a similar manner. It gives a whole new meaning to the circle of life.
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