Ship of Fools: Morbidity

Thread: Morbidity Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Tulfes (# 18000) on :

I seem to have experienced the past few years as a series of deaths. Two close family members in 2012 and 2013 and 5 or so reasonably close friends or associates in 2014 and 2015 to date.

I'm not suggesting that this is unusual but it is new for me.

I used to be optimistic and read the births and marriages in the paper but noe becoming a bit obsessive about death, I hope not in an abnormal way but a new aspect to my outlook.

I've been thinking back to people in my family who died in my childhood, even a relative who I never knew ( mother's brother) who died in 1944 ( killed in action Far East) and realising how they are forgotten and that I am the only person who acknowledges today that they even lived.

How do you deal with such thoughts intruding into life?

Posted by Nicodemia (# 4756) on :

It gets worse as you get older and everybody seems to be dying around you!

When it gets to the point I wonder if it will be me, my sister or Mr. N next then I just stop worrying and hope for the best!

Posted by Lothlorien (# 4927) on :

My husband's grandmother used to read death notices in the Herald every day. Her reaction was always the same, "Another one gone and I am still here." This would sometimes be said in triumph, other times with a deep sigh.

I do find that being accepting of all this is a help. However, I recognise in my own life that this can be a glib answer, especially if I was close to the person. Then I have a time of reminiscing in my mind about good times and bad.

Others may have suggestions they find useful.

Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :

I have seen a lot of death over the years, mainly through working in old people's homes but also a fair number of people close to me.

I think what has helped me the most is the Quaker attitude to it - yes, there is sadness but a Commemorative Meeting is a Meeting to give thanks for the Grace of God in the life of the deceased, which puts a slightly different slant on it.

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

I'd agree that it's something that comes with middle age. When the first of one's parents dies, it seems like a signal of one's own mortality.

My experience has been rather in the wrong order: my brother-in-law died six years ago aged 62, and having someone in my own generation die was a shock (albeit it was from cancer, which obviously has no respect for age or youth). Then a few years later, D. and I each lost a parent (both in their mid-80s); we're now at the stage of thinking each family reunion may be the last.

When my dad turned 90 earlier this year, my sister was very insistent that I should come over for the celebrations, even though D. couldn't go. She just said, "I think you should come" - she didn't really need to say anything more.

I can almost identify with Loth's granny - when I was in my 20s and 30s I knew the people whose marriages or children's births were in the local paper. Into my 40s, it was their children's marriages, and beginning to be their grandchildren.

These days I'm more likely to head straight for the "deaths", and while most of the people there will be my parents' generation (or their friends), I'm more likely to recognise names there than in the others.

Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :

My dad used to check the obits for his own name but he never made it in his lifetime.

Posted by no prophet's flag is set so... (# 15560) on :

Newspaper obituaries are the sports pages for older adults.

Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :

How to deal with the more morbid thoughts we have? I think it must depend a lot on our genetic make-up. As an optimist, I am glad it isn't me this time! I am glad that it looks as though I'll last another few years, so keep on with keeping as fit as possible and trying not to think morbid thoughts!

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

I try to do something to memorialise people. I was lucky enough to still have two grandparents alive after I became interested in oral history, and so I wrote up short accounts of their lives. I'm going to write up a short biography (just a couple of thousand words, plus photos) of my other grandfather, soon. There's a small museum near where he used to live and they've said they'd love a copy.

I've posted bits and pieces onto relevant local history Facebook sites - my grandmother's typing certificate from the 1920s, for example, nothing very personal.

For myself, I'm eying up a star . Maybe to mark a significant date in 2019.

Perhaps your maternal uncle hasn't been forgotten. I wrote up a wee booklet about the names on our church's First World War Memorial, and the church provided photocopies for anyone who wanted. I know at least two families said that they were glad that their respective great uncles were being remembered.

Posted by Hedgehog (# 14125) on :

My own approach is to believe that nobody completely dies, even if their name and existence is forgotten. The type of person that I am has been formed by those people that I have met in my life. My parents obviously had the most influence, but others have had some input (teachers, friends, even people met just once by chance)(in my case, one stranger I saw for less than 5 seconds has had a profound influence on my character). Who I am is a legacy to their influence.

But then carry that thought back a generation. My parents? Who they were and the type of people they were came from their parents and the people in their lives (including me, now that I think about it). And their parents? The same thing. Just keeping to the parental chain: who I am now is influenced by who my parents were, and who they were was influenced by who their parents were, and who their parents were were influenced by...etc. etc. all our past generations. Who I am is, in part, a legacy of all past generations that came before me.

As for the future, I have no children. But I have nieces and nephews and friends and neighbors. And, even if it is just subtly, I have influenced the type of people they have become. And so, part of me will continue to influence the people they influence. Forever.

We are all tributes and memorials to all who came before us, and those future generations will be tributes and memorials to us.

Compared to that, death is such a little, petty thing.

Posted by Nenya (# 16427) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Piglet:
I'd agree that it's something that comes with middle age. When the first of one's parents dies, it seems like a signal of one's own mortality.

When the second one goes there's definitely a feeling of "We're next in line." [Eek!]

Like you, I have also lost some of my generation in the family - a brother and a cousin - and have one aunt (my mum's sister) left, so things can go out of order.

Sometimes I can cope with thoughts of my own mortality and at other times I get a tad wobbly. And I do feel sad about some of the family members I know about who died long ago and whose memory will be forgotten unless someone in a future generation does some family history research.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

I remember the people I know who died long ago and will probably be remembered by almost no one else at this time, and I give thanks for them. And I remind myself that none of these is forgotten by God. (I know too much about history to imagine that I or anybody I know is likely to be remembered in 100 years--we're not at all that kind of people)

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

The death of others, particularly those who are close to us, does bring the reality of death to us. It is both our own deaths, and the truth that those around us will die.

Realising our own deaths will happen can be sobering. We know this in theory, but in practice, in reality, it is shocking to realise. To realise that we will die, all we do will be wasted, can change us for good or bad.

Realising that those around us will die also helps us to realise that the relationships around us are also impermanent.

Everything changes, everything dies. Those things we thought were solid and always with us, we realise are not. We also realise that our place in the world is not a fixed thing.

Often, we also see the ugly part of death - where someone dies unpleasantly, painfully, or protractedly, we see the reality of the human condition. We see what some of the biblical and wisdom writers were talking about.

Posted by Uncle Pete (# 10422) on :

I was in the senior generation in my own family when I was just over 39, but it really hit home when my eldery aunts died in 2003 and 2005, respectively Now there is just me and my twin left (and an estranged brother somewhere in Virginia who, I am given to understand, is in poorish health. You carry on. That's life.

Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :

I am not a great one for "spiritual battle." But as I get older I end up pretty much always asking myself "What trick is old smutty face trying to pull here, what deception, what lie, what piece of flummery?"

Tulfes, I am sorry for your loss and your pain. Please take heart, the victory is won. I pray you grow deeper in your faith day by day. I pray your sanctification grows through the Holy Spirit. I pray that you and I see death for what it is.

I am always moved by the legend of St Francis death, his worshipful rush away from the last worldly things, his praise , his alleluias, his longing to be nearer to God's presence. I am unable to achieve such saintliness but I know it is true and I am willing to try.

Oh the gift of life, oh the gift of death even greater.

Fly Safe,

Pyx_e

Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on :

For me, it's not just my own mortality - that only comes home to me at intervals - but the experiences which I am now the only living person who remembers. Various family get-togethers with the older generation, of whom I am now one. Barring a couple of very elderly aunts by marriage.

This whole thing about death just seems very odd: they were here, now they aren't. Yes, they are elsewhere, but that's not the here and temporal now.

Still odd.

Posted by Tulfes (# 18000) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
I am not a great one for "spiritual battle." But as I get older I end up pretty much always asking myself "What trick is old smutty face trying to pull here, what deception, what lie, what piece of flummery?"

Tulfes, I am sorry for your loss and your pain. Please take heart, the victory is won. I pray you grow deeper in your faith day by day. I pray your sanctification grows through the Holy Spirit. I pray that you and I see death for what it is.

I am always moved by the legend of St Francis death, his worshipful rush away from the last worldly things, his praise , his alleluias, his longing to be nearer to God's presence. I am unable to achieve such saintliness but I know it is true and I am willing to try.

Oh the gift of life, oh the gift of death even greater.

Fly Safe,

Pyx_e

Thank you for encouragement, Pyx_e.

Posted by Ethne Alba (# 5804) on :

Quite literally, i read the obituaries...... and scheme.

Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :

Have a look at this poem - it certainly speaks to my condition.

Give thanks and move on.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Is some of this our lack of experience with death, particularly the death of younger people? I had two close school friends die, one when I was at primary school* and another when I was at secondary school†. Within the same time period a grandfather died of cancer, my surviving great-grandmother died of old age and various other elderly relatives died, so it was always a part of life.

* a couple of boys jumping out on her when she was roller-skating, she fell over backwards and cracked her head, died of a brain haemorrhage later, aged 10. The boys, who were the year above us, but all friends in the same small village primary school class, were told that it wasn't their fault by the headteacher, to counteract the accusations by others.
† he had epilepsy, went swimming in a gravel pit on his own over the summer holidays, fitted and drowned. That was between VIth and Vth form.

Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tulfes:
I've been thinking back to people in my family who died in my childhood, even a relative who I never knew ( mother's brother) who died in 1944 ( killed in action Far East) and realising how they are forgotten and that I am the only person who acknowledges today that they even lived.

How do you deal with such thoughts intruding into life?

I was looking at some family photos recently, thinking that all but one of the people in them are now dead.

Loss and change are part of life. There is nothing to be done about that, except to enjoy the things and people you have while you have them, and to make the best of it while you can, because one day you'll be looking back on it and there's nothing worse than a whole pile of regrets and missed opportunities that you realized at the time (rather than with hindsight).

Honour the memories that come up, and the good times you had with people. If you can bear it, think about the more difficult times you had with them. Time may give perspective on that. You should find after a while if you've brought it out into the daylight and looked at it, you can set it aside and move on, but it may take a while to look at everything that presents itself. You go through and you come out the other side, simply because there isn't any real choice. The alternative is sitting there stuck in this.

And above all, enjoy your life as best as you can. The people you have lost would want that for you.

Posted by Abigail (# 1672) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
Have a look at this poem - it certainly speaks to my condition.

Give thanks and move on.

Yes. I found this poem shortly after my mother died (15 years ago tomorrow) and found it very helpful.

Posted by Abigail (# 1672) on :

This whole subject is very much on my mind at the moment.

Apologies for posting again so soon and for the length of this post but I would like to tell you a story.

I had a friend at Primary School called Linda. I only knew her for three years but when you’re aged 7-10 that’s a big proportion of your life.

Although we were in the same class Linda was a year and a half older than me (I was moved up a year, my birthday was at the end of the school year and hers at the beginning) but despite that we became close friends. Linda was very small for her age, very shy, nervous, and quiet. I was also very reserved and I think she found me less of a threat than girls her own age. We seemed to naturally gravitate towards each other, felt comfortable with each other and were always together. After three years Linda moved on to secondary school and despite our closeness there was no real expectation from either of us that we would keep in touch.

By coincidence my mother began to work at Linda’s new school and saw her from time to time. When Linda left school at 16 my mum asked if she had got a job (she had – as a shorthand typist) and wished her luck. My mum's comment to me was "I hope they don’t expect her to answer the phone, no-one will hear what she's saying!" (That possibly sounds a bit harsh but it was said out of concern, my mum was very fond of Linda too.)

I never saw or heard of Linda again, though over the years I wondered occasionally how she was doing. Had she managed to break through her reserve and make friends? Was she married? Children? Maybe by now grandchildren? And last year, feeling no more than mild curiosity, I decided to see if I could find out. I put her details into a family history website, and found, not the marriage certificate I was hoping for but a death certificate. I sent off for a copy of the certificate and to cut a long story short, I found that Linda had died at the age of 19 from cancer, just a week after I started work.

Considering I hadn't seen her for nearly 50 years, I'm surprised at how incredibly sad I feel about this. And it's made me think a lot about other people I've know who have died – my parents of course, and other family members, a young man at work a couple of years ago, a couple of elderly people at church who have died recently… and my own death. Yeah, it's all feeling quite difficult at the moment.

Posted by Polly Plummer (# 13354) on :

I had two friends die a couple of years ago, both people I'd seen nearly every day at one time but only once a year or so more recently, because of moving away. I still find it hard to remember they've died, and keep thinking I've seen them and then it turns out to be someone else: quite confusing and upsetting. I think death's easier to take in (though of course more painful)when it's someone you're used to seeing regularly, who is now regularly not there.

On another tack, my grandchildren have been very upset looking at photos of my parents and other relatives they never knew, wishing they could have known them and crying because they didn't.

Posted by Piglet (# 11803) on :

I can relate to your story, Abigail, although in my case it was a girl who had been in my class at school right from day one until she left at 16, and whom I'd regarded as one of my best friends. I only saw her once after that, IIRC when we were in our mid/late 30s (she moved abroad and we lost touch). Then, my dad told me that her death from cancer had been noted in the local paper. At 45, she was much older than your friend Linda, but it still brought home the reality of my own mortality.

May they both rest in peace.

Posted by Abigail (# 1672) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Piglet:
May they both rest in peace.

Amen

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