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Two friends passed rather quickly in the past few weeks. It certainly brings the brevity of one's own mortality to mind. In the faith, I've never felt overly connected to this temporary world and life, but, lately, I've felt noticeably more disconnected ... as though simply watching life pass by.
Our grandparents are the first ones to die. Most of us lose our grandparents between ages 10-35. It is very rare to have a grandparent still alive by the time a person turns 40.
Most people see their parents die between ages 30-65. Uncles and aunts die around this time as well.
Similarly aged siblings, cousins, and friends can die anytime, but a sizable portion of people aren't experiencing that until age 50+.
I knew of one person from my high school class that was dead in his mid-20s. I've not really kept up with my high school class, so it is likely there are more dead people from my high school class (I'm in my mid-30s).
No one that I knew in undergraduate has died, but I went to a large university, so it is a sure thing that someone who went to school at the same time that I did and graduated the same year as I did is already dead. Multiple people are.
Some of my friends died early, one in her 30's due to cancer, two in their 50's. My mom passed January, 2013, my son the next year, January 2014.
I have become a recluse since I moved from Minnesota to Arizona and realized I need to get out. One of the reasons I plan on traveling when my lease is up. As it stands, if I were to die in my apartment, I wouldn't be found until rent was due.
A long-time friend of mine lost two good friends this year, and quickly. Both of them found out they had cancer earlier this year, and both were dead within months. One found a lump in her breast, the other had tumors in her temple and on her spine, and it turned out she had advanced lung cancer that had traveled.
Last week I found a lump in my jaw, and thought, "Geez, am I gonna be Judy's THIRD?" You know how they say it comes in threes.
(It was a mandibular torus, a bony growth in the jaw that happens to people when they get older.)
I am somewhat amazed, however, at the number of my mother's friends and family members who ARE still alive. She hasn't been well, and while I was over there the other day one of her old friends who is in a nursing home called to see how she was. Mom is 91, her friend is 92, and I can remember these two always hanging out and laughing and taking trips together. My mother had her on speaker, and I said hello. It was good to hear her voice.
My mother has a couple of other friends in her age group who are still alive, although most are in assisted living or nursing homes now, and she still has a 95-year-old uncle and his wife.
But my brother died at 51, and my ex-husband called last week to tell me that his younger brother died of a heart attack at 62. A quick death, though. He and his wife were watching TV. She went to use the bathroom and came back and he was dead on the floor in front of the chair where he had been sitting, as if he pitched forward and went down.
Yep, at 63--not exactly ancient, but no guarantee of anything--I find my perspective way different than not too long ago. I'm just about "the last one standing" after years of losses, both with people and pets. I look back at 2010 and what a difference!
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has never felt had a complete connection with this world, and the older I get I find myself of a more mystical stripe. I also sense my generation's cultural contributions being looked at as relics by way younger people. The 1970s? 1980s? Whazzat? With few exceptions, I don't even half try to embrace the latest whatever in pop culture. But i do keep busy giving talks that encompass the last hundred years! I call it taking the long view.
An interesting topic, if one can stay philosophical rather than too sad. At times it's unavoidable. I feel the absences every day.
A long-time friend of mine lost two good friends this year, and quickly. Both of them found out they had cancer earlier this year, and both were dead within months. One found a lump in her breast, the other had tumors in her temple and on her spine, and it turned out she had advanced lung cancer that had traveled.
Last week I found a lump in my jaw, and thought, "Geez, am I gonna be Judy's THIRD?" You know how they say it comes in threes.
(It was a mandibular torus, a bony growth in the jaw that happens to people when they get older.)
I am somewhat amazed, however, at the number of my mother's friends and family members who ARE still alive. She hasn't been well, and while I was over there the other day one of her old friends who is in a nursing home called to see how she was. Mom is 91, her friend is 92, and I can remember these two always hanging out and laughing and taking trips together. My mother had her on speaker, and I said hello. It was good to hear her voice.
My mother has a couple of other friends in her age group who are still alive, although most are in assisted living or nursing homes now, and she still has a 95-year-old uncle and his wife.
But my brother died at 51, and my ex-husband called last week to tell me that his younger brother died of a heart attack at 62. A quick death, though. He and his wife were watching TV. She went to use the bathroom and came back and he was dead on the floor in front of the chair where he had been sitting, as if he pitched forward and went down.
Ya just never know.
This is why I'm retiring at 62 even though I won't have the 2.3 million or anything close to it many articles claim you need. Once I'm 62, retired and living in my new place where I want to be, any time I have after that is my time and icing on the cake. I'm keeping my fingers crossed I make it.
By one way of reckoning, the antidote to these doldrums, and to overall feeling of drift and finitude and submersion into irrelevance, is to dedicate one’s life to making archival contributions – whether in the arts, the sciences, technology, literature or whatever else. If works written by us would remain at least in university libraries (who like to store pretty much everything) for centuries after our deaths, is that not a form of immortality, and a huge boon and form of gratification in the present? Even postings on this Forum, perhaps, would be archived and retained… maybe even read?
This is why I'm retiring at 62 even though I won't have the 2.3 million or anything close to it many articles claim you need. Once I'm 62, retired and living in my new place where I want to be, any time I have after that is my time and icing on the cake. I'm keeping my fingers crossed I make it.
I hope you do.
I retired at 57 because I could claim my pension, but I continued to work part-time because the work came to me.
They would like me to work more hours. I could be making bank, but I am not, and that's because I don't want to spend these years while I still have my health just working constantly only to find out suddenly that it's curtains. I don't have $2 million, either, lol, but I can live on the pension, and time is more important than money.
If it bothers you to be isolated in a rural area (it would certainly bother me), why not move to a city?
Cities are ugly, filthy, and crowded. If I don't want to live any longer, moving to one would kill me. I can't imagine living in such squalor.
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With few exceptions, I don't even half try to embrace the latest whatever in pop culture. But i do keep busy giving talks that encompass the last hundred years! I call it taking the long view.
