Older People Checking Out

An extraordinary number of elderly people in my circle died 2009. I am 43 so maybe this is just normal. But I realized practically every one of my friends lost a parent or grandparent last year.

Then with holiday cards I also noticed that a lot of people I see less often mentioned they had losses too last year.

But the most surprising was a theme of "checking out." So many were not really sick, not cancer or degenerative diseases. But quick pneumonias as surprising complications to things people weren't expecting to be fatal.

And yet, over and over I heard, but they were "really ready to go." "We had great closure." As if they "waited to say good bye and then died shortly after."

Over and over - must be at least 15 people I can think of without really trying to make a list here.

It just seems odd. Have any of you noticed from this last year?

reply to post by trusername


In the past two years I've lost five family members to various illnesses. I do think some of them just gave up...almost as if they willed themselves to die?

However, as we age so do our families and friends. I think its very normal for us to start noticing more and more people dying in our circles.
Still hard, though.

Anyway, hope things improve for you and yours in 2010!

Also - and this may sound silly - but I'm morbidly curious to see the Oscars In Memorium this year.

It seems to me, thinking back on it, there were very young people who "checked out" of "natural causes" that startled me. And maybe I just noticed it this year and didn't other years. But it seemed that the surprise was in the way they died. Not drugs (well supposedly).

Anyway - depressing topic maybe - and not great for a Monday - but I was just curious.

Makes you kind of wonder when you have a large population that will need health care and you can not pay for it. This is the real reason behind health care reform. But maybe the found an easier way to cure the problem. I find it hard to imagine anyone doing a thing like this but nothing is impossible.

In the past year I have lost:
-Grandmother on my father's side
-Grandfather on my mother's side
-2 neighbors
-a co-worker

Now, all were older than 60, but it still definitely strikes me as odd that I can go years without people dying around me, and then this concentrated amount happens in such a short period of time. And that is only counting the elderly around me. A friend of mine was also murdered, one died from luekemia, one has gone missing.....

Maybe its just one of those things....

reply to post by smyleegrl



Thanks and for you too! I'm very grateful to have as much family as I do. And that when they do go it seems to be quick and on their terms.

We should all be so lucky.

Maybe it is part of the dawning of a new age and they're prepping for coming back after 2012

Originally posted by Subjective Truth
Makes you kind of wonder when you have a large population that will need health care and you can not pay for it. This is the real reason behind health care reform. But maybe the found an easier way to cure the problem. I find it hard to imagine anyone doing a thing like this but nothing is impossible.

You mean like something happening in the hospitals that we don't know about?


I have to say my grandmother HATED the hospital and we got her out so she could die at home. She INSISTED and she wasn't naturally one to insist. But she said she was scared there. Poor little thing.

Originally posted by captaintyinknots


Maybe its just one of those things....

Maybe but that's a lot! For me too - years and years with everyone plodding along and then whooosh - and dropping like flies.

Unfortunately the Morbidity Statistics from 2008 are still provisional (they haven't even finalized the Statistics for 2007 yet) and still to be analyzed. However, the provisional Morbidity Statistics for 2008 (National Vital Statistics Report) show that the Death Rate has remained 8.1% which is consistent with previous years.

However, the Baby Boomers, which previously was the most populous generation before the Global Tweens came along, are reaching their End of Life and passing the 77 year Average Lifespan. So, it would not be unusual to see the Death Rate make a substantial increase in the next decade. However, this so far hasn't happened due to medical advances increasing the Average Lifespan 3-5 years over the previous generation.

To be honest, it sounds like you are just getting older, and as such are more aware of those you once knew checking out, as your awareness of your own mortality becomes all the more acute. It is a difficult thing to face as you reconcile this within your own psyche, but each and every one of us has to go through it eventually, just as each and every one of us surely must check out when our time comes. Hopefully though, you'll use that awareness to start living your life to the fullest if you haven't done such already.

You are simply taking everything out of context.

Back in the 1700s, you would by average, have about 12 children. And only a handful of them would live to see adulthood.

In that time, we would be saying "Boy I sure lost a lot of kids this year..."

Humans are not immortal, when we get old we die, this is normal.

Just be glad we do not live in the past times, when it would be the little ones dying so often.

reply to post by trusername


I am not sure but something does not seem right according to what I am reading in this thread I would need more data to make a really good informed decision but I do know you have a large segment of population reaching golden years and not enough money and beds to go around.