I was quite lonely after my wife passed away in a road accident. It is because of my daughter’s request I became a member of Support Elders. I had Retinal Detachment sometime back. A Support Elders staff member came early in the morning and took me to the hospital. He assisted me throughout the treatment, helped me to deposit the money, get the medicines and were constantly updating my daughter about the procedure and my health. He stayed beyond his duty hours to handover the responsibility to another staff member, who took over from him and brought me home in the evening. The next day another staff came to my house and took me for post-operative check-up and reached me home after completing the entire procedure.

We know that when our children move out for their job to some other cities or countries, we go through certain type of empty nest syndrome. My wife Rina and I also went through an initial loneliness, but then we realised that it is the way of life. We have two children, our son settled in the US and daughter, in Bengaluru. They are very responsible and help us in whatever way they can. But it is not possible for them to look after our everyday needs.

It is then when we came to know about this organisation, Support Elders, from one of our friends. I especially would like to appreciate and share their passionate way of helping people like us. I had a complicated operation few months back which made my movement a bit restricted. The help and support we both are getting from them now is really appreciable.

I am writing today about one incident to let you know how much I appreciate you as an organisation. Last year during Durga Puja, we wished to see some of the pandals nearby and we expressed our desire to Support Elders, which they gladly accepted and fulfilled by sending one of their staff. He came with a taxi in the morning and happily accompanied us to the pandals we intended to visit.

He helped us getting in and out of the taxi so carefully as if he is doing it for his parents. No words can really completely capture the joyous feelings in our heart when we think of how satisfied we were that day. The way they keep in touch with us by calling us every day without fail to enquire if we had taken medicines, is there anything we need, is applaudable. Every week a person visits us and help us doing our bank works, spend time with us even if we don’t have any out of home work to do.

My wife Rina recently visited Tarakeshwar to offer Puja. She went there without any tension or worry because she knew that Support Elders has given her the assurance by telling “Ma’am you carry on with your programme and we will look after Sir”, which they did.

Support Elders’ assistance has been invaluable for our life. The staff could not have been kinder and more supportive. Our heartfelt thanks and congratulation to Support Elders for their remarkable achievement in supporting the elders to feel secured and independent. We would like to express our gratitude to this amazingly helpful foundation for their enormous effort and great sincerity for the elderly people like us.

The Buddha said birth, aging, sickness and death are four universal truths that none can escape. When we are young and full of energy both mentally and physically, we tend to forget that we will have to step into the stage of aging and sickness very soon, when we may lose all our vitality and need support to move forward in life.

At this juncture strangely, our elders usually part from us to step into their next life and our children either move away from us to create their own families or to hunt for a prospective job and we left alone without any support.

In my personal life, I have two daughters, one living in Singapore and the other in Kolkata. They are happily married and enjoying with their own families and also take good care of us. But they don’t stay with us, so for day to day we are left alone and need some support. My younger daughter, realising our limitations connected us to Support Elders about two years ago, and till date, we have got immense benefit from this humanistic organisation.

I would like to share my recent experience with all of you just to express my heartfelt gratitude and also to assure you that whenever you are in trouble, Support Elders will gladly come forward to help you in a very dedicated and compassionate way.

Recently, my husband got extremely unwell in the middle of the night. The doctor came and advised immediate hospitalisation and surgery. My husband has difficulty in walking, so an ambulance was needed. I called up Support Elders and within half an hour, their staff arrived with an ambulance. He also helped us a lot for my husband’s emergency admission to the nursing home.

Every day without fail, Support Elders gave me full support by calling me to enquire how I was dealing with everything. On the day of release, another staff came to the nursing home to help us and came along with my husband in the ambulance, settled him at home, bought the medicines and so many other things advised by the nursing home.

As my husband is over 80 years, this sudden surgery was a big trauma for him. He became totally bedridden after the surgery. He could not move or sit by himself, so we thought of renting Fowler’s bed for him, to raise it in a sitting position while he took food. Our wish for the Fowler’s bed was fulfilled with the help of one of their senior managers. My husband being bedridden I again needed day and night attendants to look after him.

Again, I called up Support Elders and they arranged for this help too. Personally, I got so tied down with my household work and looking after my husband that I could hardly leave my house. But in present situation, I needed lot of finance to meet different expenses. Once again like a loyal family member, Support Elders came forward to withdraw money from bank on my behalf.

Besides these tangible benefits, we get constant encouragement through daily phone calls and weekly home visits. Through constant interaction, Support Elders has become a close family member with whom we can share our joy and sorrow easily and never feel lonely.

I salute them with deep regard for the noble and dedicated work they are doing to help and bring joy to the aged community of the society.

May they be able to inspire others to come forward with the same mission and try to transform our society to a happy and peaceful place to live in.

I send my belated thanks to SUPPORT ELDERS for helping me by sending one of their reliable persons at 4 in the morning in this cold weather in January 2018 and getting transport (taxi) and seeing me off with luggage which I was not even allowed to touch while loading.