Life is Short

Wes Bucey

Prophet of Profit
From experience, I can truthfully say that as I move into my eighth decade, the time certainly seems to fly at a much faster pace than even ten years ago and at light speed compared to half a century ago. The curse is my brain still works at light speed to keep up, but my body always seems about a week behind, despite good diet and exercise. Here's a quote from the funeral service I seem to be performing more and more frequently that capsulizes how most view the inevitable end: "Change and decay are written upon every living thing. ... It is a melancholy truth that as soon as we begin to live, that moment also we begin to die. The messenger of Death comes when least expected and at a moment which seems to us the meridian of our existence."
 

Marc

Fully vaccinated are you?
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My mother died last Saturday aged 99 years. Sooner or later we all return to the earth from which we came. I'm almost there.
 

Miner

Forum Moderator
Leader
Admin
My condolences. My mother is in her early 90's. No health issues, but it's like watching and listening to a wind up clock slowly running down.
 

Marc

Fully vaccinated are you?
Leader
We had my mother in a very nice home for quite a few years. A place called the Barrington in Ft. Thomas, KY. She had her own room and such. It was rather like an apartment with a part time nurse. She even had her own furniture.

In many ways her passing was a relief. Her eye sight was gone, and she was very weak. She finally just stopped eating. It was hard to watch.
 

Jen Kirley

Quality and Auditing Expert
Leader
Admin
I am sorry. I lost my mother after she dealt with Alzheimer's for years and was caring for her at home. Even though one can feel a kind of relief about the end of the suffering one is never truly ready I think. It still hurts.
 
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bigqman

My Mom was a sophisticated Parisian. (Paris, TN that is) She faded slowly with senility in 2006 and at the end didn't know me - except sometimes suddenly she would! I learned to enjoy her during those times none the less. "I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens." Woody Allen

Peace for you and your family, Marc.
 
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PaulJSmith

Condolences to you and your family, Marc. I lost my Mother in 2011 at age 77. She fell and broke her hip a few years earlier, and just never fully recovered from that. The downhill slide was fast. When I visited her the day before she died, she didn't even know who I was. She, too, had been suffering from various medical maladies. It seems sad to say that it was a relief to see her go, but the end of suffering is always a good thing.

My Wife just lost her maternal Grandmother last March at age 95. Her eyesight was almost completely gone, and her hearing wasn't much better. She had no short-term memory at all anymore, and was starting to repeat herself a lot. She had a stroke one morning, refused to eat, and died about two weeks later.

99 is a very long and full life. Think of the incredible changes she must have experienced over the course of a century ...
What a magnificent journey.
 
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Marc

Fully vaccinated are you?
Leader
Actually I very much do think of the incredible changes she must have experienced.

My father died in his sleep aged 78 years. A recurring thought / remembrance I have to this day from time to time is of times he told me things about life including what it was like as he grew up in Covington, KY. As an example, I was pretty young but I remember him telling me about the first time he saw an airplane fly overhead. It was hard to image at the time but in relating it to my life he witnessed quite incredible things. I was 5 when I first flew on an airplane so airplanes were "normal" to me (no mystique).

As I look to my life, I remember programming on punch cards so many years ago and now - "smart phones" which pretty much have more computing power than mainframe computers did back then. When I was about 20 or 21 I had a friend who worked for what was then Cincinnati Bell. I was traveling coast to coast a lot and had bought a Chevy van. Her father got me a "first" on the car phone list (two year waiting list at the time). I had it for about 3 or 4 years. It did have an advantage over today's smart phones: It could pick up a signal from about 40 to 70 miles depending on the terrain. Today - Cell phones.

Back to my mother as my thoughts are meandering now... I have a mental image of her from a picture I have of her from when she was in her mid 40's. I think we were in Italy. It's a picture of her standing alone on a beach with a big smile on her face. When I think of her that is the mental image I have of her. That is how I'll always remember her. That picture is burned into my brain.

She donated her body to medical research, as did my father. She will never have a grave, not that it would make a difference to me because I will have that picture until I pass on or are too mentally "gone" to recognize it. I may change my will and do the same, but as it is now I have chosen cremation.
 
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