Notes from the End of a Long Life

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/06/nyregion/ruth-willig-oldest-new-yorkers.html

by samclemens • 5 years ago

109 71 5 years ago

helmholtz• 5 years ago

Brilliant. I've been obsessed with death since a close family member had a heart attack (and lived). In your twenties, with any luck, you will not get acquainted as intimately with loss as you will later in life. But when you do, everything else seems immaterial in the face of, as John Mellencamp put it, us standing "on this single print of time". It gives you a panic, an anxiety, about climbing the wrong ladder, about not having enough time for climbing multiple ladders, but most of all, about time running out for your parents and grandparents. This article helps me realise that perhaps with enough brute force, one may yet come to accept finiteness.

marginalia_nu• 5 years ago

If I might suggest, you may enjoy reading Seneca. He lived under a death threat while he wrote, and wrote a lot about death and mortality.

One of my favorite observations of his is that we are dying every day. Death stalks behind us and claims every moment that passes, whether well spent or squandered. Our final hour is not when we die, but the point where we finally stop dying.

Our lives are a bit like that of a candle, whether burning intensely or barely at all, every moment that passes is a moment that we are approaching the point where we run out of wax.

sillysaurusx• 5 years ago

If you like existential dread, you might also like https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28866558.

(I am become the Amazon of philosophy.)

I don’t think any of us can accept finiteness. At least not without descending into a spiral of “But then what’s the point?” from which there is no escape without fooling yourself or abandoning the question.

foobarian2• 5 years ago

I have come to believe in reincarnation just through argument by existence and limits; namely clearly we exist in this incarnation after however long, finite time that took, and therefore after death given enough time this will happen again and it doesn't matter how long that is since we're not conscious through it anyway. The bummer is that the state is not preserved.

xupybd4• 5 years ago

This week I've witnessed three people die.

Two men drowned on Sunday. I jumped in but failed to get them out. They died less than a meter from me.

On Thursday my father passed away from cancer. I was with him in his last breaths.

Life is so fragile but it's going to end for all of us. Live as much as you can while you have health. Cherish the people in your life.

We are but a vapor in the wind. I'm so thankful for my time so far, I'm thankful for my Dad and miss him so much. I'm so sad for the men that died. My hope for their family is that they can go on living without them.

ultramegachurch2• 5 years ago

I'm deeply sorry for the loss of your father. Do you mind expanding on the story of watching the two men drown? I'm curious how you found yourself in that situation.

dhimes• 5 years ago

Wow. I have no words. I wish you peace. My sincere condolences.

leetrout• 5 years ago

On Thursday my father passed away from cancer. I was with him in his last breaths.

I was there with my dad when I was 11 and he was 46. I think about it almost daily 25 years later. I can still see him and feel his hand in my mind.

It is the most rotten gift you can receive and a pain that you could someday cherish. To think of the potential discomfort and maybe even fear as life comes to a close yet have their child there with them, for you to see your parent off, is a moment that many people don't have. A moment of which many people were robbed with the pandemic and isolation in hospitals.

Grief will come and go and time makes everything better.

None of us get out of here alive.

Two men drowned on Sunday. I jumped in but failed to get them out. They died less than a meter from me.

This is strikingly different and has a different impact. I was a volunteer firefighter for a long time and worked accidents with multiple casualties along with weeks of multiple calls and fatalities. Please talk to someone you trust or can relate to what you experienced. My details are in my profile if I am that person. Thank you for your act of kindness.

Koshkin4• 5 years ago

Being "obsessed" with non-existence - yours or someone else's - is weird. The only thing I could draw from the idea of death (as the end of existence) is that you need to make the most of your life, while it lasts, and help others do the same.

awb5• 5 years ago

Non-existence is one of the most profound qualities of existence itself IMO. I don’t think it’s weird to be fascinated by it, or to continue to be mystified by it without drawing the same conclusions you have.

jarenmf• 5 years ago

https://archive.is/iDC9U

lrem• 5 years ago

Now, this brings an interesting question. The host and likely copyright holder of TFA doesn't want me reading it, unless I create a "paid or free" account. The archive link allows me to ignore those conditions. Is that a good thing?

ultramegachurch2• 5 years ago

Great article that hits home with a fear of mine. I'm not afraid of aging or dying per se, but I fear a day when I'm no longer physically or mentally capable of working towards ambitious goals. I'm an extremely goal oriented person. I need to always be working towards something "big", whether it be a personal project, releasing an album, learning an instrument, landing a cool job, etc. I fail more often than not, but just the fact that I'm working towards ambitious gets me out of bed in the morning. If I am no longer capable of mentally and physically draining tasks like this... what will motivate me to get out of bed?

popcube• 5 years ago

look your grandson getting his purpose?

ido2• 5 years ago

You motivation can be people oriented rather than work oriented.

pdimitar5• 5 years ago

I am very on the fence for this. Please hear me out, I am not dismissing the extremely humane message -- I condone it fully!

But one thing that is not said enough is that your values are not the same for every period of your life. Good luck telling a 22-year old that they must prioritize spending time with their parents because life's too short. They'll just dismiss you in seconds.

My father died when I was almost 22. I regret to this day, 20 years later, that I haven't spent more time with him during his last years but at the same time I realize it was impossible: he was too proud to admit the mistakes he made which hurt our family a lot, I was too awkward and shy back then to even initiate a conversation, and we lived in an awful and small rented apartment that me and my brother were paying for at the time. Dad couldn't look us in the eyes, he was so extremely ashamed that he couldn't pay the bills for the first time in his life that he even avoided us physically.

But, hear me out: what good would it do if any of us FORCED ourselves to interact? I am not sure if any good would come out of it; maybe it would have even brought harm. It's awful to not be able to ever get an answer but at the same time I gradually made my peace with the fact that we all grow (and hopefully get wiser) with our own pace. This pace cannot be artificially accelerated. Only a tragedy can be a strong enough force to derail us from our convenient life and force us to rebuild our values.

And that's IMO the point of the article (partially) as well: as you grow old, you experience tragedies and they realign you. Then you start appreciating the human part of life (family and close friends) more. But you can't do that before.

And I don't think we should get anxiety over the fact that we can't have the values of a 60-year old when we're 40.

wilkommen• 5 years ago

Very well said. It’s part of life to reorganize your values, you can’t accelerate it to avoid regret.

pizza• 5 years ago

Good luck telling a 22-year old that they must prioritize spending time with their parents because life's too short. They'll just dismiss you in seconds.

Reason number 100 I’m glad I watched the film Ikiru in my 20s! Helped me realize what’s actually valuable

Spooky23• 5 years ago

Good points. Agree that forcing interactions would never be productive. But I would say that many times intertia and the worries of the moment are a big deal. You can’t mend every relationship, but you can tend to the ones you have.

One of the regrets that I’ll always have is that for a few years, my dad and I worked in the same downtown area of our city, and we only got together for lunch a maybe a half dozen times.

We had a great time when we did, but usually my schedule made it difficult. He passed away last year, and it occurred to me that the things that seemed so important at the time are trivial and forgotten today - having that hotdog together for 20 minutes would have been a much better use of time.

pdimitar5• 5 years ago

I agree. The problem is only one: can we make ourselves able to see things differently beforehand? I found it near impossible so far and I am past 40 already.

BigHatLogan6• 5 years ago

Nicely said. I've been thinking about this a lot too--how contextual advice is. Even if you and your father had a wonderful, sterling relationship, it would be odd if you spent the majority of your time with him when you were 22. I hope I'm not making too many assumptions here, but many (most?) 22-year-olds are probably {working, in college, in the military, doing something where family is not the main priority}.

That's fine and expected, and I would even go so far as to say that's optimal. 22 is when you should be making friends, studying, working, doing [harmless] stupid things that get you in trouble, etc. Spending time with your family on weekends or holiday--and certainly catching up with them over the phone if you live far away--is excellent, but different parts of your life, different seasons of your life, call for different things.

As you get older, you should "come home", so to speak. I don't mean literally, although that would be perfectly all right, but metaphorically--probably more check-ins with your family, more holidays with them, etc. But if you're 22 and spending New Years Eve with your best friends, I think that is more than acceptable.

pdimitar5• 5 years ago

Yeah. Me and my brother were busting our arses off working back then, and father felt horribly about it because he left us nothing and he stopped working due to being way too ill. Life zooms by way too fast in such conditions and there's not much we can do about it.

marttt• 5 years ago

Agreed. I suppose someone losing his dad at 22 is, by and large, an anomaly in the welfare society.

My dad died when I was 26. We had a really good, warm relationship, though: driving in his car, sitting side by side, not talking a single word for 30-45 minutes, and both still feeling good.

(Occasionally, though, in the end, he would ask something like "So, ugh, have you considered who to become when you're an adult?" -- to which I replied, "Uh, I guess I have, yeah." In a few still seconds, he'd say, "Yeah. Good idea to think about that." Disclaimer: national stereotype of us, Estonian men, is that we speak around 6 sentences a year -- but even at that time, as a teenager, I liked this blissful silence a lot.)

Then again, losing dad at a young age has surely influenced my own parenting. Basically, I gave up all my career ambitions just to be with the kids when they were (are) preschoolers. Prior to his death, work stuff was really going uphill for the 20-something me; now, I admit really struggling to get back on track again (I may have missed the career train for good).

I have also noticed an internal mantra or meme: I need to raise my kids so they could cope (psychologically and in terms of hands-on survival skills) if one of their parents, or both of their parents, should die unexpectedly.

To the previous poster and GP: thanks a lot for sharing your experiences and thoughts. I sometimes think that maybe me and my dad had no principal misunderstandings simply because he died too early for these to develop.

asiachick• 5 years ago

This seems like a very USA perspective. Maybe less so for men but in Japan, plenty of 20 something women consider their mom their best friend and they hang out. I'm just guessing there are other cultures with similar practices. In the USA or a least in US media, pretty much all movies with teens/young adults emphasize getting out on your own as soon as possible. I don't think that's a universal.

In fact, while this is probably NOT true, if it was I wouldn't be surprised, and "that" would be that it's possible that marketing companies pushed this narrative through the media, like they did with diamond rings and cigarettes, since going single means you need more stuff. More places to live (1 person instead of 1 per family), more things you'd normally be able to share (pretty much everything in your house except toothbrushes and clothing), need your own car, etc...

itisit2• 5 years ago

And that's IMO the point of the article (partially) as well: as you grow old, you experience tragedies and they realign you. Then you start appreciating the human part of life (family and close friends) more. But you can't do that before.

You can't do what before? Not everyone experiences the death of others in the same way nor on the same schedule.

pdimitar5• 5 years ago

IMO you can't mature in an accelerated manner (save for a lot of personal tragedies; that tends to accelerate things indeed).

Zababa• 5 years ago

Good luck telling a 22-year old that they must prioritize spending time with their parents because life's too short. They'll just dismiss you in seconds.

Just to give another side of that, I'm 24, and chose to stay in the same city where my parents are living so that I can see them at least every week for a dinner, and sometimes more. My brother did the same after living in another city for a few years. Part of it is due to basically everyone over 30 telling how precious the time you spend with your parents is. Since I saw this everywhere, I reflected a bit more about my relationship with my parents, and found that spending time with them on a weekly basis fills me with happiness. Without lots of people insisting on it, I may have missed that. I had my studies, had to look for a job, take care of my mental health, friends, hobbies. My parents didn't always have the place they deserve within my mind, and now, partially thanks to posts and comments like that, they do.

So to everyone that talked about the importance of parents, thank you. I can't guarantee that I read your specific comment or article, but you are part of something that added some happiness and removed regrets from my life.

ido2• 5 years ago

I'm 38 and had the same experience - not specifically about my mother but about prioritizing spending time with my wife & children even when it seems my work needs my time & attention. Usually everything works out fine even if I occasionally leave early to pick up my kid from kindergarten in the afternoon.

I was raised to prioritize work above all and it took years and many similar discussions and texts like the above to make me realize it's not what makes me happy.

techsin1013• 5 years ago

people often say what advice would you give to yourself or if you travelled back in time what would you tell yourself, and really there is no profound wisdom to depart. Everything I have done is based on my current understanding which is not really complete. Like looking back I may regret I wish I'd have done xyz more, but then if I actually had been doing that I would be regretting something new.

xattt• 5 years ago

Perhaps this part of my ruminating inner voice, but I think my wisdom to myself would come in small nudges: stay away from here, pay attention to this, ask for help with that.

JKCalhoun2• 5 years ago

Everything I have done is based on my current understanding which is not really complete.

Sure, but that's what time traveller you brings to the table, some "future understanding".

I would hope I would listen, deflect my trajectory somewhat at least.

WalterBright• 5 years ago

if you travelled back in time what would you tell yourself

Mortgage the house and invest it all in MSFT.

pbhjpbhj• 5 years ago

As a parent this is sort of what I do with my kids -- there are problems I've faced along the way that I would have loved help with. I'm looking out for those things and trying to impart what seems like wisdom from where I am now.

JKCalhoun2• 5 years ago

The "Walking Distance" episode of the original Twilight Zone is a classic. Captures you can't go back.

But I have to say, I dearly want to hear what the elderly at the end of their lives have to say to us. Whether I act or not is up to me, but I want to hear their piece.

Notes from the End of a Long Life

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