In recent years, many people in Hong Kong have blindly followed the "emigration wave," leading to a situation where children move abroad, leaving their elderly parents behind to face empty homes alone. Recently, a renovation worker shared on social media an experience involving a bathroom makeover for an elderly person living alone, revealing the desolate and lonely circumstances of emigrants' parents left behind in the city.
The worker posted on social media that he had received an order to remodel an elderly client's bathroom. It was only when he arrived at the job that he discovered the client was a 70-year-old woman living alone, who had been residing in that flat for four decades. Her husband had passed away two years ago, and her children, who should have been her support in her later years, had all settled abroad, leaving their elderly mother behind in Hong Kong. The home that was once bustling with life was now filled with nothing but silence and solitude.
The elderly woman confided to the worker, "I don't have many years left, and I just want to live a bit more comfortably." She revealed that her greatest fear in recent years was tripping and falling in the dark when going to the bathroom late at night, terrified that she might die alone in her home without anyone ever knowing.
Her words saddened the worker, so he thoroughly remodeled the bathroom to address the safety needs of the elderly. He installed non-slip floor tiles, grab bars for support, and motion-sensor night lights, and replaced the threshold with a gently sloped transition. After the work was completed, the elderly woman paced back and forth in the bathroom to test it out and said with emotion, "I finally don't have to worry anymore when I get up at night."
However, what troubled the worker the most during the renovation was the sight of the elderly woman sitting quietly in the corner all day, silently watching the workers as they went about their tasks. It seemed that her home, which had long been devoid of life, had finally welcomed a trace of human presence, and she could not bear to look away. At the moment the work was finished, and the worker was about to leave, the elderly woman said something that struck him deeply.
"Once you're done, I'll be living all alone again..."
The worker noted that after clocking out, he stood in the stairwell for a long time, feeling profoundly unsettled.
The post quickly went viral online, sparking heated discussions. Netizens condemned the children who had abandoned their parents and moved overseas, criticizing them, "Leaving your mother behind to emigrate is truly unfilial." "As children, you really need to think about it—you'll only truly understand the loneliness of such days when you grow old."
Some netizens, however, held differing views, arguing that children have their own lives to lead. Some even suggested that the elderly woman sell her flat and move abroad to live with her children. But such comments were quickly met with rebuttals, with one asking, "How do you know she hasn't already thought about following her children?"
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