Death - Are you ready?

[jono]

This is a hard thread but I am convinced it’s good to talk and share both feelings and experiences.

i lost my mum a few years back .. she wrote copious notes and thoughts on death funerals and life in general. It’s where I get my verbosity from. Her abiding desire was for it to be quick and while she still had all her physicality and mind. Not to have to linger in a care home with people talking to you as if you were a child when in fact you had been a living breathing, thinking, laughing dreaming, hoping, creative, horny, full on member of the human race. 

She got heavy duty Norovirus and while getting up in the night to change her bed linen, dehydrated, fell down stairs, knocked herself out, kidneys failed following the dehydration and she checked out. .. i’d Spoken to her the day before and she said she’d been sick and was feeling a bit rough but was sure she’d be fine .. probably a dodgy prawn she said. 

Desperately desperately sad that she was alone but happy in a way that she was 100% my mum right to the end and never had her true self taken from her. Miss her every single day 

[Sith Happens]

2 hours ago, DC-1975 said:

My wife passed away in June, 18 months after being diagnosed with cancer. The cancer was incurable from the beginning and when the chemo stopped working, she was told she had 6 weeks - 6 months to live. 2 weeks later she went into hospital with a temperature and after being examined we were told she now only had days. Her condition deteriorated very quickly and she died 5 days later.

 

Even with all the time we had knowing she was dying, we still weren't prepared.

 

We didn't manage everything she wanted to do, but I imagine her only regret will be not seeing our daughter grow up.

 

I agree with others, power of attorney and having a will in place is essential.

Cant say anything thats right other than i am so sorry for your loss.

[Sith Happens]

Its a tough subject. I used to be totally scared of the idea. Then i got to thinking what are the odds we are here in the first place?  The odds that sperm meets the egg on that moment. And likewise my grandparents and so on and so on.

That said when i was diagnosed with my blood condition 5 years ago i was misdiagnosed to start with with an illnesses where the average life expectancy from diagnosis is 3-5 years. I did proper poo myself with the thought, more for my family though.

Even my actual condition average life span from diagnosis is 15 years. That would make me 57.

I fully intend to retire when im 55 if im still here. And i fully expect to be.

Im not scared of dying really i am scared of suffering and the upset i know it would cause those close to me.

[Zag zig]

In a word No

But for my kids, I’m putting together some taped messages, they will have as keepsake to both remember me by with humour and guide them best I can whilst not being there; mostly though with an underlying theme of enjoy your bloody lives, as it passes very quickly!

[bigbadbob]

Nope, not yet.

[Ewe Ram]

My dad got up one day, had his brekkie, got dressed, felt a bit poorly and died. Just like that in his 70’s. If you love someone you want them to go exactly like that. The shock was awful but he went in the perfect way. 

I work in the NHS and I see illness and imminent death all the time. It gave me an unhealthy focus on my own mortality and I was ruminating about illness and death a lot as I had a major op this year and infections got me. That was very scary. I got some help with the mental issues and have found that thoughts can be controlled which has made me feel happier. I’d urge anyone who feels consumed by those kind of worries to seek help with it, it works. 

[Angry Ram]

Poo's the life out of me..

[eddie]

I'm ready - the memsahib is provided for, everything is paid for, browsing history deleted and Derbyshire won today.

Oh, wait - the new beer order from Kurt hasn't arrived yet.

[ossieram]

I'm not planning on going anytime soon, but see it as a bonus that I've made it into my mid fifties and am ready to go when it comes.

My Mam died aged 25 from cancer when I was 14 months old.

One of my brothers was killed when I was 11 and he was 13.

My youngest sister was killed when she was 19 and I was 23.

My stepmam died 25 years ago.

One of my stepsisters died aged 52.

My dad died aged 75 about 7 years ago.

With luck like this, the rest of us take each day as it comes.

 

 

[Comrade 86]

I give it no thought whatsoever. The will is drafted and everything and everyone that should be is provided for. To my way of thinking, fear of death simply stifles life. The only thing I fear and am completely unprepared for is that loved ones will be taken before me and such morbid thinking, as and when it occurs, I immediately push to the back of my mind as it's simply too awful to contemplate. 

[Carl Sagan]

Sympathies to everyone on here who's been through a tough time.

I made my first will last year. Felt very serious and grown up. I don't have dependents but was shocked, when discussing it with friends who do, that most haven't. 

I work with a bunch of "transhumanists" who are on a mission to cheat death - basically they see ageing as a disease to be cured and reversed. Some are signed up for cryonic preservation with some of those prepared to have their dead brains destructively scanned and uploaded into computers, once a certain probability of success has been reached. 

The young generally think they're immortal. When I was young I thought I'd be part of that wave who kept ahead of death with new technological developments, until immortality is effectively achieved. Now I expect to die at some stage. I am considering the cryonic thing, but it would be far better if taking that seriously to move out to America, to close to the Alcor headquarters in Arizona. 

[Stive Pesley]

10 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

I work with a bunch of "transhumanists" who are on a mission to cheat death - basically they see ageing as a disease to be cured and reversed. Some are signed up for cryonic preservation with some of those prepared to have their dead brains destructively scanned and uploaded into computers, once a certain probability of success has been reached.

Are they really serious? To me the idea of living forever is worse than the idea of dying. Life is pointless enough as it is. The thought of it lasting indefinitely sounds like some level of hell.

[Carl Sagan]

Just now, StivePesley said:

Are they really serious? To me the idea of living forever is worse than the idea of dying. Life is pointless enough as it is. The thought of it lasting indefinitely sounds like some level of hell.

Absolutely. It doesn't mean the total end of death, but rather you choose when you want to die. I would love to think I had a thousand years of healthy life ahead of me. You never know, I might even get to see us win the Premier League. Then again... 

[Stive Pesley]

44 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

I would love to think I had a thousand years of healthy life ahead of me.

I think I'd be crippled by indecision. I'm a bit of a procrastinator and If I literally had all the time in the world to do stuff I'd probably never do anything

Plus you have to think - Your family would be gigantic and you'd be financially crippled every birthday and christmas.

And trying to remember how many "greats" to put in front of each relationship name would be a nightmare

?

 

[Highgate]

How long before we can upload our consciousness onto a computer?  I'm sort of fine with living forever, given the alternative, even if it's just a virtual existence (can we be sure it's not just that already? ? ).  I mean I'm willing to give immortality a go for a while anyway.  Just as long as nobody plugs me out.

[Smyth_18]

Ok now we've all gone full Robert Earnshaw.

Kill me now.

[Highgate]

11 minutes ago, Smyth_18 said:

Ok now we've all gone full Robert Earnshaw.

Kill me now.

Actually what Robbie Earnshaw tweeted made perfect sense.  If we are ever to encounter aliens, the first contact will almost certainly be with their technology rather than the actual aliens themselves.  That's even assuming they aren't an artificial 'lifeform', in the first place. 

[StringerBell]

3....2....1.....

 

[Stagtime]

[WhiteHorseRam]

7 hours ago, Stagtime said:

Apart from the 2007-2008 season where we died every Saturday.