Let me tell you about Senhor Manuel.
\nAny one of us could, one day, \u201cbe him!\u201d<\/p>\n
Senhor Manuel is 91. He is very frail, but his mind is very sharp.
\nManuel has been in hospital for months, alone and without a single visit.
\nAs the only \u201ccompany\u201d beside his armchair were loneliness, pain, regrets and life\u2019s disappointments, he began to shut himself away, falling into silences that lasted for days.
\nHe is extremely kind, thoughtful, sweet and has a wonderful sense of humour.
\nHe is in bed 21, right by the entrance of that room, on our left.<\/p>\n
The whole time we were there, he played along with us. He repeated what we said, and found it hilarious.
\n\u201cAt first his daughter used to visit him, but over time the visits became fewer and further apart. Now nobody comes to see him!\u201d said the therapist. She was a very friendly young woman, fond of him, whom we called his \u201cgranddaughter\u201d.
\nAs time went on, Senhor Manuel became happier, more smiley and more playful!
\nHe even started answering us in English.
\nMany of us think about this and reflect on it.
\nBut we should more often put ourselves in the slippers of the Manuels, the Ant\u00f3nios, the Marias and the Rosas.
\nBuilding up the knowledge and wisdom that time \u201coffers\u201d means that noticing, reading and sensing abandonment, absence and disappointment can be cruel enough to wound, and can harden the most beautiful of hearts.
\nBeing seen again and heard again works real \u201cmiracles\u201d.<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t take much to hurt or disappoint someone\u2026 but often it takes almost nothing to see the \u201clight\u201d come on again, the windows open and the \u201chouses\u201d fill with colour.
\nThe man in bed 21 was \u201csomeone\u201d, but he could be me, you or any one of us. He was trapped in his pain and in hard, cruel thoughts. But a few minutes later he was alive again.
\nAll of us can go through difficult moments at different stages of our lives. But the switch to \u201cturn on the lamp\u201d is there, it is always there!<\/p>\n
At the end, as we said goodbye, Senhor Manuel made a heart shape with his hands and fingers.
\nTelling someone we appreciate and love them doesn\u2019t need letters, words or text.
\nSome gestures speak, sing joy, life, colours, scents, sharing\u2026 lives!
\nThere are poets, painters and artists who express joy, love and happiness in superb ways\u2026
\nBut Senhor Manuel, who today is him and tomorrow could be me, you, us, chose a simple gesture to express the beauty kept in the hearts of our elders.
\nTheir hearts have been filed and sculpted by time, and have become refined. It is the human being at its finest.<\/p>\n
Listen to them, hug them, love them, for they are the \u201cmost refined, purest and finest minerals\u201d!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A visit, a heart drawn with two hands, and what is lost when nobody listens to older people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2300,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pdo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdo.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}