UTMC

Is this just the way life is now? Once I hit my thirties, people I know die all the fucking time.
All the time.
Every couple of months or so.

Is this normal? Do I need to get used to it? I figured this kind of mortality rate wouldn't start happening until much later on...

Not quite that often, no. You may be bad luck or something. It does happen though, with ever increasing frequency. Memento mori and all that.

Generally people only die once.

Cancer is a hell of a drug.

Sometimes the only thing worse than cancer is the cure itself.
But generally, I remember hearing of people dropping off in my thirrrrties.... Yes, at least two then, one that still bothers me but there were three or four right out of high school, two in my twenties I think...
Its been quiet in my 40's but I'm only a few years in.

you're just lucky you know a lot of people.

xtian wrote:you're just lucky you know a lot of people.

Yup, this is why I stay away from people.
Seriously, it sucks if you've lost a bunch of people in your recent life, but don't take that as typical once you reach an "age". I am in the final stages of my 30's and have not had a death near me in over ten years. Jinx.

Perhaps not with such frequency but yeah, it's normal. Will you ever get used to it? No and if it ever stops bothering you maybe it's time to turn in your human card.

Just recently, I found out that one of my classmates from high school hung herself. I barely knew her but damn...

I'm 31 and the last time someone I personally knew closely died was about 10 years ago. I do think that's an exception.
On the other hand, my mother is one of the younger of 9 siblings (not the youngest, but third youngest or fourth or so), and she's 72 this year. So I'm expecting the rush to come soon. People in her family seem to be ridiculously healthy and long-lived, though.
As we get older, the likelihood of people we know are as old as us or older ("old" in absolute terms, not relative to us) grows. Since the likelihood that someone from a group of people will die in a certain year grows with that group's age, so the likelihood that someone we know will die grows as we get older. It's a fact of life.
Even if it's a random distribution, in real life, when you plot events on a graph, you'll find clusters, and clusters of clusters.
It's possible you are just experiencing a cluster of events, or a cluster of clusters of such events while the likelihood of these events is growing all the time. So I'd guess you'll eventually wonder about the lack of deaths in your circle of friends or family.

Either that or the number of people you know is so ridiculously large and varied, or generally so prone to fatal disease/misadventure that you'll want to get used to it.
I hope that's not it.

DerGolgo wrote: Either that or the number of people you know is so ridiculously large and varied, or generally so prone to fatal disease/misadventure that you'll want to get used to it.

I really think that this might be the case right here.
I mean if you look at the stuff I do, and the people I'm involved with, it's a bunch of semi-emotionally unhinged weirdos (no offense, guys ), motorcycle riders and racers, world travelers, thrill seekers, adventurers, and all across the age spectrum.

This last one was a friend from the track who had gone missing for a while. I went and looked for him at his shop (dude built drag racers... cars) a while ago and couldn't find him. Turns out I couldn't find him because he was in the hospital dying. Apparently racing supermoto was something he was checking off his bucket list.

The guy was crazy nice, and suuuper quiet and unassuming. Kind of a tiny, frail "old" dude. When you talked to him, though, you'd find out about skydiving and drag racing and being a mechanical badass and all sorts of other shit that people usually brag about.
It took months before he even mentioned the cancer, and when he mentioned it, he talked about it like it was a past tense thing, instead of something aiming towards terminal.
Then eventually it sort of quietly came out of him that he still has to do treatments "every once in a while."

Then he just stopped showing up.
And when we went looking for him, he was gone.

His bike is for sale right now, and goddamn I wish I had $3500 to buy it. The last passion of a dying man, who just happened to be a really awesome person? I'd be honored to ride that thing. Especially because I know how pissed he would be if it didn't get absolutely flogged, and ridden like stolen.

Sorry to read about your friend.
Cancer is something we will have to get used to. Last time a doctor told me about it he said it's no longer a matter of "if" but a matter of "when" for most of us.

Yeah. Unfortunately, since I've been bathing in shop chemicals and random inhalants my entire life (second hand cigarettes, welding smoke, volatile chemicals...), plus the crazy amounts of party drugs I did in my early twenties, and the multiple hellacious sunburns I've experienced, I am pretty much expecting it at some point.

Hopefully it won't kill me.

This year has been especially hard for me- I've had about 6 people I know die- I just found out about one today that was killed in a motorcycle accident in April. I have another friend who's husband has about 3 days left.
It just seems like this year is deathwatch year, and frankly I've fired 2012 because of it.

I'm 46. Four friends or ex-coworkers dropped in the last three months. Now my bass player (decent guy) has metastatic malignant melanoma in lungs, lymph nodes & adrenal gland. The band is now officially his personal "Make a Wish Foundation." Five-year survival rate is 9%. I hate single digits.

Last year, was a real head snapping year in losses of acquaintances...4 total. Of course I have an edge over many here... I rolled 62 years old. Fuck... I still cannot get my head around that number. I sure don't feel that old and can run circles around my friends that average 10 years younger than this midliferider. I'm pretty much out of "midlife" now I guess. Maybe I should change to crusty rider? Shit I'm wearing hearts stents as internal bling these days. Never smoked, never over weight, generally lived in moderation. Can't pick your own genetic combination...dang. Well, my advice.. don't put too many things off... live like you're dying... cause we all are, just a little everyday. Crusty, over and out.

The whole- has 3 days left was apparently me being optimistic. My friends husband died at 1pm.

6 for the year. 2012 is fired.

Mea wrote:The whole- has 3 days left was apparently me being optimistic. My friends husband died at 1pm.

6 for the year. 2012 is fired.

So sorry.
I agree about this year. After my holidays in July, I will re-evaluate.

For me it seems to happen in clusters, or at least I find out about it all at once, my dad's parents died month apart: Grandpa had cancer, Grandma died from stroke when he was getting really ill, stress killed her.

few month before I turned 30 my school friend died from an accidental gun discharge while cleaning his gun, to the side of the head... he just turned 30, no one had any idea that he was in trouble. I flew to his funeral in San Francisco like many of my former classmates and that's where I found out that 2 others are not with us anymore, one was a my close friend in school but stayed behind when I immigrated so we didn't keep in touch, another I knew since kindergarden, she lived in Boston, only an hour away but then suddenly disappeared. After that trip I was in a hole for quite a while....

This past April my Mom and Dad each lost a cousin, one lived in Israel, another in San Francisco, then my Grandpa's last remaining brother died all days apart, he was nearly 90, youngest and the last of that generation...

None has been family (yet), all friends of family or friends of mine that I've had close experiences with. Sitting and watching my friend's husband last night was really rough, because in the back of my head I could feel it was going to be long, and now here we are.

The friend who died in a motorcycle accident this week hits hard in a lot of ways (because we had a brief "thing" and then because it was a motorcycle accident, which makes you that much more aware when you're out on your own bike.

But it also makes you feel like this is the beginning of your generation's death watch. Like all you have to look forward to is death. And that's never good.

Just found out an old friend checked out last night from some obscure cancer. Details are sparse, but services are supposed to be on the 23rd.

I'm ready for 2013. Anytime.

I thought my dad was possibly worse than dead on Sunday.

My mom called me from the hospital and I could tell she was barely keeping it together. My dad had been fine in the morning, but after he got out of the shower, he called to my mom and told her that he didn't remember getting in the shower and didn't know how he got there. Furthermore, he couldn't remember anything from that day or the night before.

My mom took is blood pressure, which was through the roof and took him to the hospital where they ran tests and did a cat scan.

When I got there, my dad greeted me and looked fine, though a bit frazzled.

"This is weird . . . . do they think I may have had a stroke?"
"Yes, we're just waiting for results from the CT scan."
"They took a cat scan? Was I asleep?"
"No, you were awake."
"Really? Jeez . . . . I don't even remember driving here."
"You didn't drive here, Mom drove you."
"Why did we come here?"
"Because you can't remember anything."
"Man . . . I'm losing my mind."
"Just try to relax and take it easy."

After a few seconds, it would start right back up again:
"This is weird . . . do they think I may have had a stroke?"
<Repeat in an endless loop from here>

My only exposure to this kind of thing is freaky case studies and the film Memento. I felt certain that I was looking at a ghost of my father that I would have to get into some kind of care facility. I thought it was the end of having any kind of normal friendship with him. I thought about how my son would no longer have a regular grandpa. All I could do is sit with my mom and try to comfort him while we waited for the doc.

He finally came back to tell us that the cat scan looked good and mumbled something about Transient Global Amnesia. We could go home and check in with his doctor the next day. I freaked out and asked the doc if he was serious, and after grilling him with questions, started to get an idea of what transient global amnesia is. I had never heard of it, and for whatever reason, "transient" didn't leap out to me as meaning "temporary." I thought that meant that the memories themselves were transient.

Anyway, I drove my parents home and made sure things were cool before heading home myself. Checking in later, my dad was feeling much better and most of his memory had come back. When I talked to him the next morning, he was 100% normal again.

That was fucked up and terrifying.

RF I'm glad your dad is going to be alright.

Do NOT fuck around with strokes!
I have friends (overweight ones) that had strokes before they turned forty. My father in law was a very active retired machinist running a shop out of his home. Then he had a stroke because of hidden heart problems and uncontrolled high blood pressure due to not seeing his Dr for a couple years. Now with limited left side mobility, memory loss (short and long term) and serious impulse control problems he has to have assistance for lots of things limiting his independence.
Watching this first hand will really change your perspective on human frailty.
Pay attention to that blood pressure kids!

The mind is a terrible thing to scramble up. It really makes one realize that actually, the real you and me is a football sized lump of gray and white matter. Don't fuck it up too much. Please, love your helmet while riding, or even if you're grilling out and partying with booze, well, maybe.

I had an aneurism in the late 90's when I was about 28, working out of the country. Spent 4 days in hospital, and a total of 12 with a splitting headache. You don't realize in the thick of things how big a deal it really is. Only later do you realize what it might have been like for your friends and loved ones to lose someone such as yourself.
Everyone does the best they can, I think.
I had a friend that died while I was at sea. She offed herself, and I only found out about it a couple months later from a mutual friend. I never understood it; she was smart, exceedingly beautiful and funny, but I guess it was over her father's inability or unwillingness to accept her boyfriend. Nobody talks much about it.

Intelligence and suicide are positively correlated, I'm afraid.

“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
-Ernest Hemingway

Just lost another one.
Car accident.

It's strange one for me. I've known the dude for a few years now, but he's someone who has always been a right asshole to me. Like he had a grudge or some alpha male, punk rock chip on his shoulder. Beyond that, I thought that he was a pretty OK dude, and I was looking forward to working with him again this summer, if for no other reason than to find out where the chip came from, and to settle the bullshit and maybe get to be more of the friends on purpose variety than family by default (He was a person I worked with during DPW, there's a lot of "got your back" involved, even if you don't get along with the person; I have zero doubts that the dude would have thrown into a fight on my behalf without a moment's hesitation, despite our tensions).

His and my random beef aside, once again, a lot of my friends are suffering through the parade-of-fucking-hits that life has been for a while now.

Turns out I had more than one friend in the car. The other is a girl I know and like a lot (and would totally be hot for if it wasn't for ICGF.) She's in surgery with a broken femur.
There were two others in the car as well, but I haven't gotten word as to who they are, or if I knew them.

Sorry, 'Shit. This stuff has gotta stop.

Seriously- Fuck 2012.

I'm sorry 'Shit.

HUG.

Ugh. I have nothing. "Enjoy every sandwich" -Warren Zevon