Author Topic: Mortality  (Read 3202 times)

micah

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Mortality
« on: July 21, 2015, 08:14:26 AM »
I just saw on facebook that a woman I went to grade school and high school with just died. She'd had cancer for the past 3 years, she was only 35.  I wasn't really friends with her or anything but for some reason I'm really sad about hearing this news.  She had young children too.  Man that sucks.

I started this post to write a big long thing about how people perceive death or ignore it; pretending its not going to happen to them, at least not for a very long time so its not worth thinking about.  But I don't really know what to write so I'll just stop.  I guess with age this sort of thing will just become more real: the more time passes in your own life, the more people around you will pass away.  Eventually its your own turn.  Maybe you're next?
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Jake

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Re: Mortality
« Reply #1 on: July 21, 2015, 09:28:24 AM »
Many of my guy friends (and people I know), after hitting a certain age (32-33) begin to think about things like that A LOT. It becomes sort of obsessive. My best friend went to see a doctor for these "panic" attacks. All of a sudden he thought he is getting a heart attack; he would go to the ER and mostly everything would be fine with him. This happened twice that he actually visited the ER and many times when he almost went. The doctor prescribed him some drugs and he takes them once in a while. He is 36 now and the shit seemed to go away....until recently, when he purchased a new house and it looks like he made a poor decision with it (that's for another thread).

So anyway, I think about my own mortality every once in a while. Mostly about my family though.
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ober

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Re: Mortality
« Reply #2 on: July 21, 2015, 12:30:11 PM »
I could get wiped out on the highway on the way home.  My wife has thoughts like that constantly and she worries about it.  I can't think like that or I'd drive myself insane so I try to push those thoughts as far out of my head as I can.

charlie

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Re: Mortality
« Reply #3 on: July 21, 2015, 02:06:08 PM »
I feel like I can usually empathize or sympathize with other people's fears or worries fairly well, but it's different when it comes to mortality. For whatever reason I don't really have any fear of death itself (but plenty of worry over the practical fallout), so I just can't come up with any even remotely helpful perspective on it.

It was interesting watching as my Dad passed away. He's very similar to me in mindset, and while all the doctors, hospice nurses and family had ideas on how to make facing death easier, he never really seemed worried about it. He was obviously sad to miss out on more life and worried about how us kids would cope, but even when he knew it was imminent he wasn't afraid. I expect I'd be the same way, but I have no idea how to help others get to that place.

Jake

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Re: Mortality
« Reply #4 on: July 21, 2015, 03:02:36 PM »
I feel like I can usually empathize or sympathize with other people's fears or worries fairly well, but it's different when it comes to mortality. For whatever reason I don't really have any fear of death itself (but plenty of worry over the practical fallout), so I just can't come up with any even remotely helpful perspective on it.

It was interesting watching as my Dad passed away. He's very similar to me in mindset, and while all the doctors, hospice nurses and family had ideas on how to make facing death easier, he never really seemed worried about it. He was obviously sad to miss out on more life and worried about how us kids would cope, but even when he knew it was imminent he wasn't afraid. I expect I'd be the same way, but I have no idea how to help others get to that place.

I am very similar - I don't think I fear death itself, I just fear missing out on the lives of my kids and that I could not be there for them when they need me. That shit is scary. I hope that 18-20 years from now that will change. A major goal in my life is to raise my kids so that they can brave this world of ours by themselves and grit through life by themselves. 
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KnuckleBuckett

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Re: Mortality
« Reply #5 on: July 21, 2015, 10:30:10 PM »
I agree.  No real fear.  When it happens it happens.  I fear a significant loss of quality of life far more than death.

micah

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Re: Mortality
« Reply #6 on: July 22, 2017, 11:11:53 AM »
tgm's post reminded me that I started this thread a couple years ago.  For me, hearing the new of someone passing - especially "before their time" - makes me feel so sad for their families and those who loved them.  Honestly, sometimes I'll even get choked up reading about a complete stranger on the new.

For my whole life, I've never had a personal fear of death. It was something I just assumed would happen some day and it means moving on either to another life (as I choose to believe) or maybe nothing (which is just as likely). Either way, it never gave me much worry (in retrospect this might have a lot to with the coping mechanisms I created for myself when my mother passed away when I was a teenager).

The problem now is I have my own family. And my kids seem to really like me and I just can't imagine what it would be like for them if I weren't around.  Just thinking about that, while writing this, is getting me pretty upset.  Before, I never felt like it would matter what happened, now though, I have something to live for. But its so scary. I'm getting close to 40 and not in great health.  Why can't life just be easy?
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ober

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Re: Mortality
« Reply #7 on: July 22, 2017, 01:58:01 PM »
People always said 'you will think differently when you have kids' and I was like whatever. I had younger siblings and tons of cousins.

But it is totally different. It is hard for me to listen to bad or even sad things happening to kids without thinking of it happening to my own or feeling so deeply the pain it would cause for the kid or the parents or whatever. I feel like my empathy for those situations in particular is 10 fold after having kids. So I completely get where you are coming from.