'I started waving at the CCTV': Belinda Lee accidentally scares family of elderly woman while filming documentary

You are living separately from your elderly parents. You have CCTV installed in their home to monitor if they're okay, and one day, you see a gaggle of people in there and your mum's nowhere to be found.

For the daughter of one elderly woman, her response was to call her mother up frantically and ask if she was alright.

Host-actress Belinda Lee recounted the event, which was funny in hindsight, during a recent interview with AsiaOne: "I was chatting with Madam Leow in the kitchen and the crew was just doing all the setup in the living room.

"All of a sudden, she received a phone call and said her daughter was very worried and asked her, 'Mummy, where are you? I'm checking the CCTV and I see so many people in our house, but I don't see you. Are you okay, what happened?'"

The elderly lady responded that she was casually chatting with Belinda, 46, in the kitchen.

"And I thought it was so sweet, that the daughter got worried," Belinda continued. "So I ran out to the living room, looked at the CCTV and I waved to her daughter who was watching all of this.

"Just to assure her that her mum is in good hands, there is no robbery in the house. It's really just a bunch of production people trying to set up for filming in her mother's house."

Apparently they all had a good laugh about it and the daughter was excited that Belinda waved to her.

[[nid:648366]]

The filming was part of an upcoming three-part documentary Belinda did titled Our Heart of Care. In it, she shadows Silver Generation Ambassadors (SGAs) as they support elderly residents.

Belinda had previously collaborated with the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC), which oversees the SGAs, on an Instagram post last year, and the experience had left a lasting impression on her.

Presumably AIC felt the same, as Belinda told us: "I remember before we said goodbye to one another, they looked at me and told me, 'Belinda, we're so happy to be working with you on social media posts, because we've had a few people working with us, but we could see the part of you that really comes across as something so sincere, genuine, and we can feel it'."

The compliment "warmed her heart", Belinda added, but she left thinking "if it happens, it happens" until she got the opportunity to collaborate on the documentary with AIC.

[embed]https://www.instagram.com/p/CkfiW8Bg7DM[/embed]

Not afraid of ageing

Belinda also shared about the elderly loved ones in her personal life, and how her in-laws keep her optimistic about ageing.

When asked if it was something she feared, Belinda responded that she is someone who lives in the "now" and doesn't plan ahead enough to be scared of ageing and loneliness.

"I think it's really a mindset thing more than anything else. And I am deeply inspired by my in-laws," she said.

Belinda said that people in the United States, where her husband David Moore and his family are from, don't usually have the luxury of hiring domestic help unlike those in Singapore, and need to be "fiercely independent" to have a good quality of life.

While her father-in-law is 87 and her mother-in-law 86, Belinda said that they feel more like people in their 30s and 40s when they talk.

"To this day, they're still gardening, they are still fixing their home, they are still driving around enjoying the beach, enjoying the parks," Belinda added. "They still go on road trips, they still travel, they still do things that they enjoy, and we brought them to Alaska for a cruise recently."

[embed]https://www.instagram.com/p/CveS5etOFGM[/embed]

She considers them "living testimony" that despite growing old, "life has just begun".

Her husband David's optimism has also rubbed off on her, and Belinda shared some of the things he tells her.

"You don't have to be afraid of growing old, because life is exciting," she relayed his sentiments to us.

"As long as we keep ourselves healthy and enjoy life, there are just so many things awaiting us."

Our Heart of Care premieres tomorrow (Oct 26) at 8pm on Channel 8. It will also be available on-demand for free on meWATCH.

[[nid:611769]]

drimac@asiaone.com

No part of this story can be reproduced without permission from AsiaOne.