Waiting Around to Die

[Davey Do]

We are born, go to school, work at a job most of our lives, have family, retire and die.

If we're lucky.

 I figure that I am one of the lucky ones who is afforded the luxury of being able to wait around and die. Some aren't so lucky.

 

[Kitiger, RN]

Me? I'm not waiting around to die. I'm active, learning, working, playing, and growing. 

Davey, does not this describe you, too?

I think it does. ?

[Davey Do]

Why, yes it does, thank you very much, Kitiger.

This is just a concept that I stumbled upon: We're all going to die some day, we're merely using the time, "waiting around to die",  to the best of our abilities.

I just want to explore the concept and maybe get some feedback from my virtual friends and community members, so once again, thank you Kitiger!

[Davey Do]

Here's a further concept to consider called saving:

Belinda, my medical nurse wife, often says something like, "I saved this much money!" when in actuality, she didn't spend as much on an item, due to a coupon or a sale. Belinda did not put the money into savings, she merely didn't put out as much money.

Along with that concept is the "saving" of a life. Many of us Nurses can say that we saved someone's life, when in actuality, our intervention extended that life. That Patient will eventually die, our actions merely put death off until another time.

Ya know?

[Davey Do]

[Davey Do]

The first time that I could recall thinking about death was when I was seven years old, while watching my Dad clearing brush in a meadow behind the house one Summer evening in 1964...

 

 

Dad retired at the age of 62 in 1990 and died at the age of 84 in 2013.

[amoLucia]

In 1968, the assassination of Martin Luther King occurred. I was in 11th grade and 17 yo.

He was 39 yo at that time. I remember thinking, 'boy, how old'.

Just a different perspective. 

[Kitiger, RN]

I remember, as a teenager, watching my Mom's cousin jog around the block. At 40! I was most impressed!

[Davey Do]

Since I'll be turning 65 I about six months, maybe I should have titled this thread, "Waiting Around To Become Medicare Eligible, Then Waiting Around To Die".

[hppygr8ful, ASN, RN, EMT-I]

To Quote Jim Morrison of the DOORS "No one here gets out alive!"

[Davey Do]

The  1971 McCartney song "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" brings back a good memory of being 14 years old in a backyard pavilion/cabin sort of building on a rainy day with my girlfriend. She and I were lying on a couch, making out, listening to a big old console radio.

After the part of the song that goes, "I had a cup of tea and a butter pie", I thought the words to the song were, "Who would want to meet so horrible a pie?" when the words were actually, "The butter wouldn't melt so I put it in the pie!".

 I recently Googled the lyrics. For 50 years, I had the words wrong. I was 64 years old before I learned the actual lyrics.

"Oh well", my best childhood friend, Rad, said, "You could have been 65 before you learned that!"

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

We all start dying the minute we are born. It's just a matter of how long that process takes. For some sadly it's way too short. For some sadly, it's way too long.