At the age where I'm losing many friends...

[teg]

...All I can say is I was fortunate to have known them, thank them for their encouragement and can never repay the kindness shown...

Pass it on to the next generation... including the memories!

 

[Industrial Toys]

I remember as a child finding the notion of Death rather foreign. My grandfather died in WW II and although I never knew him, that was pretty much the extent of my death list.

Sometimes I lie in bed at night and think of all the friends and family that are gone. That list becomes longer all the time and becomes longer faster! I too had and have friends typically older.

It actually amazes me that we are not more affected by that huge void left in our lives by those people.

 

[rekees4300]

ultrarunner - Please accept my condolences for the lose of your friend Lee. Take solace that all living things die, it's the natural order of things. Those are the rules. Also take solace, as bizarre and irrational as it may seem, there IS an afterlife and someday you will be with Lee again.

 

[Industrial Toys]

As much as my (current) Belief System tends to think that reincarnation is probably real, if we have lived thousands of lives, that would indeed be quite a large circle of friends.

 

[ultrarunner]

Some of what I am feeling is also a questioning...

I was 12 when I joined the Model A Ford Club and from the start I was the kid with much older friends.

I bought my first home at age 22 and again was the kid on the block and the beneficiary of those older showing me the ropes and freely offering help and advice with my many home improvement projects.

Lee's widow is the one I am most worried about as he did just about everything... and she was not always in the best of health... they were very much in love and never able to have children... in the 40 years they have been married... on the way home from the Hospital she rear ended a car because she was simply lost in grief knowing the end was near... he told her not to worry about the car and I would know what to do.

The best way for me to honor his friendship is by being there to help her... the water system, solar, building automation, his shop are all things he designed and built...and totally foreign to her... plus there is Lee's 100 year old Mom who was driving to age 95...

Not having a next generation to step in certainly complicates things and is one I contemplate about my own life...

 

[deerefan]

Some of what I am feeling is also a questioning...

I was 12 when I joined the Model A Ford Club and from the start I was the kid with much older friends.

I bought my first home at age 22 and again was the kid on the block and the beneficiary of those older showing me the ropes and freely offering help and advice with my many home improvement projects.

Lee's widow is the one I am most worried about as he did just about everything... and she was not always in the best of health... they were very much in love and never able to have children... in the 40 years they have been married... on the way home from the Hospital she rear ended a car because she was simply lost in grief knowing the end was near... he told her not to worry about the car and I would know what to do.

The best way for me to honor his friendship is by being there to help her... the water system, solar, building automation, his shop are all things he designed and built...and totally foreign to her... plus there is Lee's 100 year old Mom who was driving to age 95...

Not having a next generation to step in certainly complicates things and is one I contemplate about my own life...

Life, and well death, has a way of changing things. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse or sometimes just change. My dad and I are about as close as a father and son can be. He just turned 70, is very spry and active but I know the years are catching up. My wife and I are doing something we never thought we would do-selling our 40 acre farm and moving closer to my parents. After having kids and watching my parents age, we realized the area we were in, which is extremely rural (nearest neighbor about 1.5 miles away, terrible schools, no jobs/infrastructure, etc) was not conducive to our family needs. We are looking at bigger house on about 10 less acres in a much better area 10 minutes from mom and dad. The desire to be there for my parents in their last years far outweigh the old desire to live where we are. I am much like you-I tend to run with the older guys. A lot of my buddies ask me how I know how to do so many things and I tell them it was taught to me by those that could. Sadly, that generation is rapidly declining in numbers. It is up to the few that paid attention to pass our knowledge down. Hopefully the younger generation will take the time to listen and learn.

 

[ultrarunner]

Yep... knowledge freely shared with nothing expected in return other than a thank you...

I too faced the same situation after Dad passed away... Mom was having memory problems and being alone was getting to be a problem but taking her away from her home of 50 years would cause other problems...

We had a talk and I decided to rent out my home to be closer to her...

I keep hinting about making the move to Washington which was my plan and where she really loves to visit but it would mean leaving behind all that is familiar to her...

 

[arrow]

I used to sit down with a man I've known since 1978 and converse about life. He was in his mid 50's at the time. He died last year at 94. I asked him once when he was 93 what it was like to know one is at the end of their turn on earth. This is what he said: "Well, I used to get ravaged by those thoughts. They were like having poison ivy in the brain. I simply choose not to be so introspective as introspection leads to depression. It is why 90% of people my age are depressed. They dwell on what used to be. So I've learned to simply dwell in the moment and my moment was pretty good until you brought this **** up".

 

[stuckmotor]

Someone said, "The older you get the more funerals you attend." Sad but true.

 

[Teachu2]

None of us gets out of this alive. Two weeks ago, a fellow teacher woke up with a backache. Called a sub to cover his classes and his wife drove him to the emergency room. He had an aneurysm in his back, bled out before they could stop the bleeding. He was four days short of 65. He was a microbiologist until his early 50's, then became a high school Biology teacher. His wife of 40 years said he was never happier, and we'd become their family. His memorial service was in the school library, with friends from his high school days sharing memories with his students.