I think I'm gonna call my mom.
But come it did, about 7 years ago. Since then I've lost two brothers, my dad, my grandparents, and my best friend. The trite "fuck cancer" statement comes to mind regularly. Another friend of mine has cancer, my mom has terminal cancer, my stepmother has cancer...
> I think I'm gonna call my mom.
Always a good plan, I highly recommend it. I think I will do the same. Treasure your loved ones, even when times are good it can change suddenly.
>>>Always a good plan, I highly recommend it. I think I will do the same. Treasure your loved ones, even when times are good it can change suddenly.
Absolutely. Now, I hope this does not come across as trite but I lost my mum to cancer in 1997. I was 27 at the time. It was hard, very hard as you'd expect. Time does heal but it takes a lot of time. I can still call my mum and she sometimes responds. Not literally - that's mad. I can still remember her values and guidance.
That won't be same for everyone because loss is personal and so is all experience. I've buried (in the loss sense, not mass murderer sense) quite a lot of relos and it is hard and part of life.
Whatever happens, you can always call your mum and she'll always be there in some way.
Not at all. I'm sorry for your loss, and thank you for sharing with us - who all have or will lose someone - a way to heal.
People talk about to going to Mars or other planets as a stupendous achievement. And it is. But I believe what would be the greatest human achievement would be fully conquering these leading causes of death: cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease..and finally the biggest cause of death and the final frontier: dying of old age. Even an extension of human lifespan by a several decades in good health could transform civilisation.
Yet, it seems that medical science has progressed only a few feet while industry/tech has sprinted miles. Life expectancy has plateaued and even declined across the world.
> But I believe what would be the greatest human achievement would be fully conquering these leading causes of death: cancer,
I dunno about the others, but with cancer I don't think it is possible to "cure" it.
It's the result of a bad mutation when a cell reproduces (AIUI, it's to do with telomere lengths and statistically certain low-frequency events).
Each cell that reproduces will do so imperfectly, and normally those random mutations aren't too bad. Statistically, one of those mutations will eventually be a mutation that causes the cell to reproduce without limits (normal cells don't reproduce very fast).
Hence, the longer you live, the greater the chance of a bad mutation, i.e. cancer. The only way to "cure" cancer, then, will be to have cells reproduce perfectly, in which case you have effective immortality as long as no other disease or event kills you.
When I visited my mom last month, she was complaining she doesn’t like 8 people ward coz of zero privacy and the need to share washrooms. She’s been brought up as a princess and was highly pampered, being everyone’s favorite, and finds it tough staying in such accommodations. She told me she wanted a single room to herself. I told her it’s not good staying alone, we will get you into a double occupancy room, so there’s someone in the room in case something untoward happens.
Today, she called me via the Counsellor today after a week, and the call got disconnected in about a few seconds coz of bad network.
I later called up the hospital but the Counsellor had left. However, I had her shifted from an 8 people ward to a 4 people ward today. It’s because the rehab administrator advised that we have 4 people ward as well if you wanna consider. I said ask mom and see what she like - 4 sharing or 2 sharing. The admin called up 10 min and said your mom was okay with 4 sharing, and we have moved her there.
Tomorrow, I will call her to ensure she’s comfortable in 4 sharing and if she does not like, next month I move her to 2 sharing.
Just a random post reading your comment.
My dad died last year after a long illness on my birthday of all days. More than anything I find it amazing that a person can disappear. After they die there's this mandatory by law rush to bury them literally and figuratively. Delete all traces of them even their clothes and shoes are thrown away. Bit by bit things they touched disappear.
I was sitting beside my Dad died as he was in a bed in a palliative care room. Rick Steve travel show on Rome was playing and it was 8:40pm when Dad stopped breathing. To me in my mind that's where Dad is. A grave has no meaning to me maybe it will someday.
We all have to go through it but I think we assume it can't happen to use it's other people. If you're in that golden time right now be mindful of the gift you have now. Oh and take lots of pictures in this age of cellphone pics and videos - use it! And make sure it's not just Christmas and cakes in front of them for all the picture.
Please do that. I used to always backpack around, barely went to her or spent some time, always restless, always on the move, always angry (kinda still am), used to fight with her over little things. Though it seemed she always forgave me, or I just took it for granted. Joined work after college and I kept planning for the vacation I would take her to or the house I’ll help her build, and the gifts, for almost over a year but never actually did it or found time. And one day she was gone.
My grandmother is very conservative. I'm not talking "voted republican", I'm talking "call black people the N word" and spends all day on Infowars forums. I stopped talking to her when she started being extremely racist towards my wife (who is Mexican) in late 2016. The rest of my family (who don't suck) would just put up with her and roll their eyes at it, until March of last year, when she told my mother that she was a failure because my sister is gay. After that, no one in my family will communicate with my grandmother, and I suspect she's going to die sad and alone, with her only friends being OAN and The Daily Stormer.
There's a part of me that feels guilty over that, because at some level I realize she's just a dumb person being dumb and she can't help that, and that maybe I should make an effort to extend the olive branch, but I can't shake the feeling that being nice and talking to her would be inconsiderate to my wife and sister.
I don't know the correct path on this, and perhaps more depressingly I'm not 100% sure I'll miss her when she does eventually die.
You're right though, everyone avoiding her is just going to push her further down the QAnon rabbit hole, and that's sad.
Here’s my side. I’m seen as Quanon in my former groups of friends despite not being it. The last drop with one is when one died of cancer, and no-one went to see him. He was leftist, of a leftist family with left-to-extreme-left friends from generation to generation, with supposedly human values top to bottom; and if not for me, he would have died almost alone, we wouldn’t have found the “point on the visual keyboard” trick to communicate, he wouldn’t have had the wifi or tv for his last 6 months, etc. I was there the last night, totally randomly (well, I was there 3 times a week) playing him his last song, one he had written with me, and I hadn’t realized the commie died the most beautiful death, going to sleep on his own song, surrounded with his friends. And this guy is not the only example. My daughter has been raped (France, by a migrant of 2nd generation, by the ethnicity everyone is racist about), my cousin killed, they regularly kill gays on the central place of my city, they drag girls for 800m until their bowels are spread on the road, and judges release them every single time: I am right to believe what I believe. At the time I had helped in a lot of charities, I’ve donated 3-5% of my revenue, but my observation is that leftists will hate us no matter what we do to help the poor, and even if I were “part of them” (the progressists), they would have left me die alone like they did for their friend. I’ve left every single group who had these traits, so I’ve left all of them, and my friends are now Quanon-type.
You see, from the right, the center-left seem like atrocious people. But I’m genuinely sure you didn’t intend to. I’m sure it’s just ignorance on your side, and I know you say the same thing about me ;) We had the same values at the core, and life just slapped us in different ways. Maybe your mother didn’t actually tell you her history, and/or maybe she needs a punching ball for all she failed at life.
It’s hard, really hard to accept being someone’s punching ball. The rational decision would be to refuse, and you’d be right 100% of the times.
Or, if you think that diversity is strength, you could get acquainted to her, and maintain the speech despite hating the contents, and accompany her for her last years.
I’m not saying I would do it.
If you caricature what I’m saying, you could even interview your mother in order to write her biography. You may throw it away if it’s bad, and/or some key events may surface.
Again, I’m not saying I would do it.
Every time I'm mad at my daughters in the morning before taking them to school, and I always have the thought what if I don't see them after that, then I forget about my anger, hug them tight, and would say I love them so much.
I can't imagine the pain losing a child. Every time reading again about the Sandy Hook, I tear up. One of the dads couldn't bear the emotional pain, he ended his own life.
Please be kind to others, we're all human and we happen to be on this same journey on earth.
It hasn't been as bad as some folks have had it, but, pretty much every year, since I've been eighteen, at least a couple of people in my close circle have passed away, for numerous reasons. In the early 1990s, it was bad. I won't get into why; and it's bad, again, now, for different reasons.
It's really rough, to be in his position. Even with all the wealth and resources at his disposal, he could not do much. I know others, who have had to deal with the same kind of thing.
When parents lose children; even when the children are dealing with long-term illness, it is devastating.
You really should, like right now. not in a few hours, not tomorrow, right now.
I lost my mom years ago to cancer, I'm now in my mid 30s and would give up _everything_ I have to spend another minute with her.
Without our mom and dad, we are just lost children.
I just don’t agree with the sentiment that for everyone without our parents we’re just lost children. That would imply that we never grow up. In reality, adults can ideally self-guide themselves and they do that on a daily basis. And then most of us have children which needed to be guided by us…
Having kids does seem to be important, because it kinda migrates a person’s role from “child to a parent” to “parent of a child”. Still, complete independence is something I’ve never really seen.
I think I'll go call my parents too...
Mine died while I was stuck in jail because I was too poor to pay the release fee. Even with the intervention of the British government, the jail would not grant her final dying wish, to have a brief video call with me so she could say goodbye.
So yes, absolutely call your mom. You never know when it will be the last time you hear her voice.
Hi, how's your day, what's for your dinner, are you ok for milk?
Mom is where we come from
Cherish what you have around and live each day as if it was the last and more important, never reschedule meetings with close ones if you can avoid it.
The usual typical words, that so often feel like empty words, however time proves us how much wisdom they actually have in them.