‘CHRISTMAS without you…I love you I miss you, Christmas without you.”
These are the words of a popular Kenny Roger and Dolly Parton duet, a tune that is often heard around this time of year, and used to express one lover’s feelings for another.
However, while the song is about a man and a woman missing each other, the message is clear: No one wants to be without the ones they love, especially not at Christmastime.
This fact is expressly the reason why the story of an old woman is intriguing: An unknown woman in a wide sea of faces; an uninteresting passerby not seen by people consumed with their own priorities.
Her voice is strong for one so petite, but she only speaks when she is sure (a lesson for some of us) of what she’s saying. Her head is covered with a purple bandana, and her grey hair, tinged with brown, peeks out from under it. She is dressed in a baggy blue t-shirt and an ankle-length grey skirt. An old mop-stick is her support, and it seems to have been cut down to suit her height. The bottom of the stick is caked with dry mud – telltale sign of a long walk possibly. Her gait  is not steady, and is made even more difficult by the heavy bag (what we know as a salt-bag) she lugs around. On her feet are bright yellow slippers that look the worse for wear. The only jewellery on her person is a copper ring on her right hand.
There is something about the set of her chin, and a flicker of something in her eyes that draws your attention if you are looking her way — or if she is looking yours.
“Please for a small help.”
It is all she says to an almost half-empty minibus. She is confident for the most part, but from the look on her face, there are moments that she wavers.
The old woman is obliged with a blue note, and the $100 bill is turned over to the driver as her bus fare from somewhere on the West Coast (I’m not sure where, since I joined the bus after her) to the stelling at Vreed-en-Hoop.
“Please for a small help.”
The frail woman repeats this refrain to just about everyone who enters the bus. Another $100 goes beneath a fold in her bandanna, and the rest, mostly $20 bills, go into a small purse she has hidden in her bosom — an old custom for most old East Indian women.
Once at her destination, she struggles out of the bus and begins her trek to where the speedboats are moored.
“What is your name?” I pressed.
“Star,” she replied.
“What is your full name?”
She hesitates for what seems an eternity, so I repeat the question, and finally she says: “Suliman.”
Whether that’s her name or not, I cannot be sure, but our little chat continues.
“I went to my daughter-in-law. She had a wuk (a Hindu religious function)…I live in Wales. My son build a house for me there….Is only me alone live,” she said.
“Where are you going? Who looks after you?”
There is no response.
About to press further, a nearby vendor shouts out to leave the woman be.
“She is here steady…always asking people for money, and carrying it to give she children,” the vendor said.
The realities of this woman’s life are clearly indicative that she had been dealt a hard hand by life.
However, to have borne children and still have to resort to begging is not a fate Guyana’s elderly should have to endure, no matter what they did in their earlier years.
‘Star’ or Mrs. Suliman, whatever her name is, is only one example of elderly people having to endure hardships during what is supposed to be the golden years of their lives.
There are mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts and uncles who are left to fend for themselves in their latter years.
They are neglected by the ones dearest to them; those who they – in most instances – dedicated their lives to bringing up.

Age is a strange thing; they say the older you get, the wiser you be – but also more vulnerable

Children learn to smile from their parents, regardless of what wrong parents have done (parents are human after all), so the least one can do for an elderly person is give them a smile in return.
Pope John Paul II was once quoted as saying: “To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the family has to become, in a special way, the servant of the others.”
This time of the year it is not some feeling you chase after, or the presents you buy (or get), nor is it the food or drinks we drown ourselves in. It is much more.
At Christmastime, when the world over remembers the birth of Jesus, a palpable gift of love, may we also recognise the need to share that gift.
Love….family….Christmas!