Plan B Forum

Do you?

Since I passed 50, the whole bloody issue has been leaping to mind. Not helped by bloody Clarkson having a fixation with it in some of his books.

Yesterday I took our old mutt to the vets. He's knocking on a fair bit, and is now on tablets, but some time we're going to have to say "enough is enough old son", and bite the bullet. I'm hoping he has a year or so yet, but the bills are mounting up.

But, of course,m every passing makes us reflect on our own mortality, and ignoring the fact that we are mortal doesn't lessen it's impact.

In only hope I go before my wife, I cannot imagine not going before our kid.

Oh, and as for the result of kicking the bucket? As some fucker once said; "I hope for nothing more than a deep and dreamless sleep."

Your thoughts?

As Woody Allen Observed, “I’m not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens.”

Death? Death?

I was brought up with death.

Death has been part of my life since the beginning.

I have introduced death at an early stage with the Hatch too.

I have buried a child already. I am hoping I do not need to bury another.

When I go, I hope it is overnight whilst I am snuggling in bed.

see that just freaks me out. Waking up next to the corpse of a loved one. Not a happy place to be.

Dead bodies don't disturb me at all. I saw my first dead body at 5, I kissed my first dead body at 10.

In between the ages of 5 and 10 my parent took me to many, many cemeteries.

Mind you, I have only been around bodies that died peacefully. I am sure an unpleasant death would provoke a different reaction from me.

Being so relaxed about death, mebbe I should consider going into the funeral business?

I think about death -- my own, mostly -- more and more these days. It's a little unsettling, in that I'm more aware of it drawing inevitably closer, but it's not nearly as frightening as I thought it might be, really. I'd like to live long enough to see my kids establish themselves in their own lives and get settled, even have kids of their own, but I'm not at all sure that's in the cards, as we started our family rather late. I'm not looking forward to death, but I'm not dreading it, either.

The worse thing for me is not the thought of death itself, but of losing what I now have.

Without wanting to boast, I'm at a very content stage in life.

I have a wonderful wife and daughter, we have great future plans. I have my health. I'm pretty fit. I have many friends. I have a job that I enjoy, I live in an interesting and stimulating place with access to about ever thing I need. (Apart from a good local pub, which may not be a bad thing.)

I have a comfortable lifestyle, I have my hobbies, I have my interests.

Life is pretty damn good.

I'd like to keep it that way, but reminders of mortality intrude.

Gob wrote:The worse thing for me is not the thought of death itself, but of losing what I now have.

Without wanting to boast, I'm at a very content stage in life.

I have a wonderful wife and daughter, we have great future plans. I have my health. I'm pretty fit. I have many friends. I have a job that I enjoy, I live in an interesting and stimulating place with access to about ever thing I need. (Apart from a good local pub, which may not be a bad thing.)

I have a comfortable lifestyle, I have my hobbies, I have my interests.

Life is pretty damn good.

I'd like to keep it that way, but reminders of mortality intrude.

Mate, if this were a movie you'd be checking out the "strange noise in the cellar" about now...

Gob wrote:The worse thing for me is not the thought of death itself, but of losing what I now have.

Not me; I could easily let go of the lifestyle comforts; I maintain them mostly for the kids, so that they can get a good education (this town has great schools) and will know material security. When they're off on their own we'll jettison the house, yard, cars, jobs, etc. and move back into the city, to a much lower-maintenance life and many fewer "things."

I think a lot about my father's death and how at some point his struggle to survive was simply outweighed by the relief of letting go. We were all there at his last, and it was peaceful enough, I suppose, and I think he regretted most about dying was not knowing how things would turn out with his kids.

Nobody gets out alive.

I enjoy it while I can...

Oh I'm enjoying it to the full.

I'm hoping to have another 15 years of very active life. Me and Hen have plans to leave Aus in three or four years time, for a few years of semi retirement in the UK, and to use this as a base for exploring Europe.

Then we want to return to Aus and have at least a year doing the grey nomad thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_nomad#RV_Lifestyle

My plan then to settle down and retire fully, with my books, good scotch, cricket on the TV, and do nothing more energetic than walk my dogs on the beach, (Hen may want a little more activity out of me.)

But always there will be a little nagging voice in the back of my mind wispering; "cancer. heart attack. car accident. climbing fall. paraglider collapse"

Gob wrote:But always there will be a little nagging voice in the back of my mind wispering; "cancer. heart attack. car accident. climbing fall. paraglider collapse"

I have heard you usually survive your first heart attack ... I I know many who have had paraglider collapses (I have had a few myself) without injury. Remember - it isn't the fall that kills you, it is the sudden stop at the end.

I like Richard Dawkins' view. He, as you may know, is a well known atheist and someone asked him how he viewed death since he didn't have a god to be with. He said that death would return him to the same state he was in when dinosaurs roamed the earth. I, too, find comfort in that thought.

God, you are in a great position that you have a nice life and, importantly, you realise and appreciate it. If more people appreciated what they had rather than constantly trying to get more (often at the expense of others) this world would be a better place.

Nobody should outlive their kids. I can't think of anything worse. The Hen - I'm so sorry you had to go through that.

thestoat wrote:The Hen - I'm so sorry you had to go through that.

Thanks.

thestoat wrote:
God, you are in a great position that you have a nice life and, importantly, you realise and appreciate it. If more people appreciated what they had rather than constantly trying to get more (often at the expense of others) this world would be a better place.

Agreed 100%!

I mustard-mitt I am very happy with my given lot.



Just as well for you Gob.

Sorry - as you surmised, I meant "Gob, you are in a great position" - not referring to any of the deities that may or may not be out there

I sometimes call him God.

I do recall an old thread by you on DAF Hen... Summat about only being religious whilst having an orgasm...

Ha!

I remember that one.

I probably see death and think about death an abnormal amount compared to the rest of you. I don't, however, dwell on my own for the most part.

Not too long ago one of my beloved frequent flyers passed on. She was a lovely old dame and I adored her. She was originally from Great Britain but had lived here since age 19 with only one trip back to visit. She had lost her accent and gained one typical of this area, but then had a stroke and suddenly had her old accent again. I would characterized it as a lower class accent, sounding rather Cockney to me.

Anyway, on one of her stays with me and the gang I found her with an o2 sat of 39%. This is not good for those who don't know. She was a no code but one still has a responsibility to avert death if it can be done without doing CPR and ALS and so forth. I shook her a bit and she took some deep breaths and her sat jumped up quickly. In a sort of groggy haze she told me there was an angel standing at the foot of her bed. I, a budding agnostic, looked at the foot of her bed and saw nothing. Still the hair on the back of my neck and arms stood up. "Love, you have to learn to let me go when it's my time. That angel came to get me." We chatted a bit about it and I said to her, "Maybe the angel came to get me because it wasn't your time yet." She thought about it and said maybe that was the case. "Well", I said, " At least you didn't get a whiff of brimstone." This made her laugh heartily as I knew it would. She had a caustic sense of humor like I do.

She passed about 2 weeks later in her nursing facility. I mourned.

I walked in on someone who had died unexpectedly 2 days ago. It's always startling.

All these years and so many deaths yet corpses still give me the willies. They do unexpected things such as sighing and farting. It's a bit freaky. I understand where this comes from. At age 12 I had an older brother who was killed. He was 17. He had a lot of girlfriends. While he lay in state they touched and kissed him and combed his hair. The mortician was in a snit because they were messing up his work and he asked them to stop it. I finally decided to touch him. Just on the hand, the slightest touch. I was shocked to feel him ice cold and hard to the touch. Later I lay down to sleep and dreamed that he sat up and screamed, "Don't touch me!" Been weird about dead bodies since.

Last night a woman lie dying. Her whole damned church showed up and sang around her bed. I have never seen anything like it. I would hope for a bit more privacy while dying, but hey, whatever floats yer boat I guess.

A woman I work with died for a bit. Her heart stopped. Fortunately she did it at work so she was quickly brought back. Then she checked out again after briefly regaining consciousness. After a couple of stents and a little time in an induced coma she talked about it. Pretty undramatic she said, like some turned off the lights then turned them back on. No hovering out of body no lights at the end of a tunnel. She is kind of disappointed that she doesn't have some great story to tell. I suggested that she make one up, I mean after all who's going to know the difference?