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From the posts it looks as though it all depends on what you have seen in your life. I watched my Dad wither away and finally pass at 83 from colon cancer. His last couple of years was not pleasant to say the least. I watched my Mom slowly start getting Alzheimer's and after my Dad died she went down hill rapidly. She spent her last months in a nursing home sitting in a wheelchair staring into space and not saying a word. She died also at age 83.
So no, if I had to go through that type of illness I definitely would not want to live that long. But then it looks as though genetics is against me. Mid-60s and I have arthritis problems (like my Mom) with a hip already replaced (she had a knee replaced) and I have also gone through two surgeries with diverticulitis (another colon disease like my Dad).
My uncle died last year at 100. When he got sick right before he died it was his 1st time overnight ever in a hospital. He was in full command of his mind and told wonderful stories. He farmed all his life. Retired and started working at a cook at Denny's full time. He was 70 and did it for 10 years. I still miss him everyday. If I was as fit as him I would take 100 anytime.
From the posts it looks as though it all depends on what you have seen in your life.
That is so true. Not only regarding old age but other things as well.
During the 1980s and 1990s my only experience with cancer was to see two people (my aunt and my best friend) suffer terribly for less than a year between their diagnosis and surgery, treatment, and their death. As a result, I was 'convinced' that should I ever be diagnosed, I would not "put myself through all that" but simply accept the inevitable.
Well, that resolve lasted for about 15 minutes after I got my own diagnosis. I was on Google researching surgeons and oncologists even before my hands had stopped shaking. The survival instinct kicked in BIGTIME and darned quick, all previously formed preconceptions be damned, lol.
I suspect something similar might happen to some of those who now say that they wouldn't want to live to a certain age. We really cannot know how we feel about the choice between living and dying until something happens to actually throw that situation in front of us for real.
...I was 'convinced' that should I ever be diagnosed, I would not "put myself through all that" but simply accept the inevitable.
Well, that resolve lasted for about 15 minutes after I got my own diagnosis. I was on Google researching surgeons and oncologists even before my hands had stopped shaking. The survival instinct kicked in BIGTIME and darned quick, all previously formed preconceptions be damned, lol.
I suspect something similar might happen to some of those who now say that they wouldn't want to live to a certain age. We really cannot know how we feel about the choice between living and dying until something happens to actually throw that situation in front of us for real.
Well-said. We can only hypothesize about some yet-abstract future possibility. The quintessential example is the prep-school braggart with ceaseless bravado, who upon his very first moments sitting in a trench in wartime, soils his trousers from terror, and freezes when the whistle blows to charge.
That being so, there's a mirror-image situation: what if one is already past the age at which one had wanted to have expired, and lives every day with profound regret, that one hadn't died years ago?
My mother was living on her own and still driving and volunteering at 90. She had money to pay her bills, although she lived frugally. She got to become a great-grandmother at 94, and enjoyed life and talking politics until she died at 96. But at the end she was ready to go, having had a severe heart attack at 93.
I had a great-aunt who lived to be 99. She was born in November 1900 and died in August 2000. (I used to think, "couldn't she just hold on for those last few months?" )
But she was healthy until the last year. At 95, she picked up and moved from New Jersey to Florida with her nephew's widow. She had a few good years in Florida, and then in the last year she began to lose her eyesight and couldn't read anymore, and then she lost interest in life because she loved to read. She also started to weaken in the legs and fell a few times. She said she was ready to go, and then she did.
I don't get the infatuation with living very old. A nursing home? Barely being able to see, hear or walk is not living. Not having the ability to do things on my own is more frightening than dying. I look at even "healthy" 90 year olds and shudder. Not to mention the drain on our medical system and our families.
Thankfully modern medicine has allowed us to live happier and healthier well into our 80's and that's where we benefit. But until someone figures out how to slow the aging process...no thanks.
Please powers that be ...let me live well into my 80's (if I'm lucky) and then strike me down swiftly and efficiently
George Burns had a funny line about aging. Someone said to him "Who would want to live to be 100?" and George said "A man who is 99 !"
However, I agree that I do not want to live to be decrepit and having to depend on others to take care of me. It would be horrible to put that burden on my sons. I think the ideal way to go would be a couple of blondes and a bottle of Jack Daniels.
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