My Life Today
There are some pages missing from this section which starts with a page numbered 6
become acquainted with most of the tenants, but because of my hearing difficulties, I don’t mix with them as much as I would like. I have tried but found it frustrating.
Aside from my injuries in the RAF I have accumulated some of an old mans’ health problems.
I have been allocated two carers a day and they have been a great help. I am confined to my flat nearly all the time, but I do manage to creep out sometimes with my faithful stick and now I have a walker which is great.
My lovely family come to see me when they can, take me to their homes and help me with anything I need. But I miss my son who is abroad helping countries to become self-sufficient.
All my family know how much I love them but I would like to give special thanks to my dear niece who has adopted me as a second father. Although she suffers with pain from a car injury, she worries over me and does whatever she can to make my life more pleasant, even though she and her husband live sixty or seventy miles away.
I owe a great deal to the staff of Jewish Care for the way they cared for my wife in their home while she suffered from dementia and also for taking care of me.
However, one of the nicest things that’s happened to me, came by sheer accident.
At the homes where my wife was, volunteer carers come to cheer up the patients. One carer came and she gave all the ladies a manicure. We saw her many times and on one occasion she heard my name mentioned. She said she knew someone with the same name, Mindel. It turned out to be my niece. After all the excitement I became a special case to this remarkable carer. She helped everyone, it was her nature, but because she was a bosom chum of my niece she became my advisor, my chauffeur and my arranger for appointments to hospital and dentist.
Her name is Pam she visits me at least once a week to see how I am and what I need. If she thinks her husband can help me somehow he is happy to oblige. Apart from the time devoted to me, she is a carer and organizer for others. Pam has diplomas for being among the best of the volunteers in London. It has become a life-time job and she loves helping old and infirm people. I put her on a par with my mother for being so good to others. It was a lucky day for me when Pam heard my name.
Now it’s not only honour your mother, father, family but friends as well.
I was with my family on the celebration of Chanukah. It was a happy occasion. As we were leaving and making for the exit, I was carefully walking very slowly with my stick, when suddenly my free hand was gripped. It was the little hand of my three-year-old granddaughter, she was helping me to the door. Thoughtful kindness is a virtue in our family.
Family big or small, love them all.
Jack’s physical decline is documented in this last section (written in 2016) and during his final year he also declined mentally. He moved to a Jewish care home in 2017 when after a fall he could no longer look after himself. After another fall at the home when he fractured his hip, he was taken to hospital where he developed a chest infection and died on Christmas Day 2017 at the age of 101.