couple of posts on here got me in a bit of a sombre mood.
also going to a funeral wednesday, the wife of a lifelong friend had a nasty accident last saturday and died, she was 54.

in the last year 3 school friends have died too.
one to drugs, one to a heart attack, and the other in a pretty comical way ( and he would have pissed himself if it had happened to anyone else)
he sat on a wall above a beck. sat there every sunday for a ciggie on his way home from the pub. he fell backwards, banged his head and drowned (r.i.p sugar)

anyhow, it got me feeling a bit sad and down…are you lucky if you get through your forties and fifties and live to a ripe old age.
seems more people are not doing so.

Life is not about quantity, it's about quality.

Life expectancy in the UK is still increasing. However, I think we all become more focussed on our own mortality when those we know die – for any reason and at any age. I feel I've aged ten years in the past few months as I've watched my father die and now had to deal with my grieving and ageing mother.

I know what you mean, i'm 41 in two weeks and feel very lucky to have got here in one piece.

I also know a couple of people die recently, i like to think i'm fit and healthy but it can get ya no matter what 😐

Statistically, we are living longer as a nation, but it doesn't matter whether the odds of you dying/getting cancer/ having a heart attack etc. are 100 to 1, or 100 million to 1, it's still bloody irritating if you are the one I am afraid.

accidents have a way of being rather unfortunate – sad for those it happens to, and those they leave behind, but totally unpredictable.

drugs on the other hand… I feel for you, having also lost a friend about 5 or 6 years ago to a heroin overdose (the first time he'd ever tried it, apparently, although he'd been a habitual user of speed, coke, dope, acid, for about 20 years), but to be honest, if they're doing hard drugs, it's going to happen sooner or later…

don't be sad & down, celebrate the good things that made them friends. Yes, mourn their passing, but remember it comes to us all eventually.

When you get to my kind of age (56) you have an expectation of the possibility of sudden death – several colleagues or colleagues of contemporary friends have died for one reason or another. I can't say it troubles me at all, dying is no different to going to sleep except you don't wake up, and there'll be unfinished business – but you don't have to sort it out 🙂 I'm expecting to hang around another 30 years or so and then top myself before I go doolally (or at least, more so than I already am)

Never thought I would make it past 25 but I am now in my mid 50s. Lost my Dad nearly five years ago and am still dealing with the aftermath in terms of emotions and care for my Mum (know where you are coming from druidh). Lost a couple of friends in the last few years and have known people who have dropped dead at a stupidly young age and friends who have lost children. Working where I do makes me realise that if your number is up there is nothing you can do about it. Guy I work with will be going to four funerals in about two weeks!

My 6th form year was pretty small – 35odd, by the time I'd left uni 3 of them had passed away, overdose, CJD & motorcycle accident. Kind of reminds you you're not indestructable.

ton, I've already told my sis in law instructions. Live your life well with no regrets.

Death is going to come whether you are looking or not.

Not lost many friends in the last 15 years and I am now 39.

I did lose 3 when I was late teens/early 20's, drink twice and a car accident.

I cam close to having an overdose 2 years ago and had serious problems with drugs. Off them now, or should I say today.

Live for today and don't fret about the future.

Be happy and make those around you happy 🙂

Reminds me of a documentary about undertakers. They had a very sober view on life in that they see all sorts of deaths at any time in life. So it made it very real that it can happen at any time to anyone. Quality not quantity as the gentleman above said.

Carp Diem.

From my class of 32 in secondary school, within 10 years 8 were dead. That's 25% gone before I was 25.

The number has stopped it's steep decline but there won't be many left.

binners was it you who told me about the theory of the number of boys born is actually slightly higher but equals out/reduces after a while due to the attrition of boys dying before girls?

I think Druidh has it.
I lost Dad in 2001, the biggest shock of my life as I didn't see it coming. Mum lasted another 14months.
All of a sudden it's only me and my immediate family – wife and 2 girls.
Top of the tree. Bu**er. As a friend said, no one tells you what to do or feel when it happens.
Many years on I'm still struggling with it all, as I plummet headlong into increasing numbers at birthdays.
Most strange. I understand you Ton…..
Q

We are all 100% going to die. No doubt about it. 100% so why are the British soo morbid and fearful of it?

Lost lots of friends in my late teens and early twenties. Motorbike accidents, a sudden death and a mate on the Sir Galahad. No one in my 30s 40s or now in my 50s
The man who adopted me as his son died when he was 34 I was 15 (read my post about going off the rails)it came at a bad time results and careers didn't seem important after that.

We are going to have me stuffed and placed in the corner of the living room, holding a bible in one hand and pointing (at her accusingly) with the other.

This way mrshora can feel comfortable living as a devout Nun abstaining from men, alcohol and any worldly pleasures that I can no longer have.

My mate wanted to be taken away to Brighton for the weekend and pushed around in a wheelchair a lá Tony Hancock.

3 of the guys I did my degree with are dead, and 2 from my post-grad, at least 5 from my secondary school were dead by 1988.
That's life though, eh?

Makes you wonder what life is all about.

Makes you wonder what life is all about.

Well its not about organised religion is it?

aP where did you grow up and study – The West Bank in Gazza?

My sister in 6th form college was standing around chatting to her mates when one of them just fell down dead. 18 years old.

According to his mum, it ran in their family, but on his dad's side. The dad had done the same as had an uncle or two. Poor woman… It also messed with my sister's head a fair bit too.

Oh and the girl I used to fancy quite a bit when I was in uni fell down dead a few months ago. Heard about it on facebook. Felt strangely unmoved about that.. I mean it was 12 years ago, and I learned to move on a long time back.

Auntie Mildred is 80 on Sunday. We're having a surprise lunch on Saturday for her. She and Grandma looked after me after my mother died and my father was posted away. She was as fit as a flea until just before Christmas. I don't think she'll see many more birthdays. She's the last one of the family and the wives/husbands, I know she is in pain now and I think she is lonely too. I will sort of be happy when she dies, sort of.

I won't have anyone when I get old and I just hope I can be put to sleep or get squished by a lorry before I lose it and/or go incontinent.

Personally, I hope I get to be so old that I just don't care any more.

I am going to enjoy being even more old and irascible.

Yeah, that has appeal – to become even more flatulent, osbtructive and bellicose than now. Might we worth hanging around for 😆

I am going to enjoy being even more old and irascible.

I did that in my 30s and grew out of it 🙂

hora, nowhere particularly exciting – Wolverhampton & Plymouth
So, 1 fell out of a tree, 1 was shot by the Police, 2 had overdose, 2 died on motorbikes, 2 died in the same car crash, 1 just went to sleep and never woke up, 1 died last year after a transplant as he had been infected via contaminated blood clotting products in the 80s.

I am going to enjoy being even more old and irascible.

How is that enjoyable?

Lost a riding buddy and my nextdoor neighbor just after christmas

Was a proper wake up call as he was as fit as a fiddle.

It happens though. Thats just life.

molgrips – Member

"I am going to enjoy being even more old and irascible"

How is that enjoyable?

You get to push in the front of queues in shops, leer at young women, trip people up with your walking stick and generally be a pain in the ass to all around you.

You get to push in the front of queues in shops, leer at young women, trip people up with your walking stick and generally be a pain in the ass to all around you.

Do you f***. Anyone does those things near me they will get an earful, I don't care how old they are 🙁

Anyone does those things near me they will get an earful

that's as maybe but they can also feign deafness and ignore you :o)