The following message (subject: Re: Old people dying-I have no sympathy) was posted by Susan, on 12/31/2004 8:11:34 PM.

I am so very sorry for your loss, and what I am going to say is in no means meant to take away from the validity of your grief, nor to make you feel bad in any way. I know that you have been through hell, and wish you didn't have to be. I wish that none of us had to go through this hell.

I just have a different point of view on old people dying, and here it is:

Should someone who loses a sibling, or other loved one, be less sad than you are, or in less pain, just because that sibling, however dear to them, was older than your brother -- say 50, 60, 70, even 80 or 90?

Personally, I don't think so. I think everyone is entitled to their grief when they lose someone who is very dear to them. And everyone deserves sympathy and understanding.

Of course it is extremely tragic in an awful way when someone dies very young, but when you love someone very dearly, when they are so important in your life . . . and then you lose them, it does not matter how old they are, or how old you are. It cuts you in half, it hurts more than anything else, the loss of someone you loved.

I actually think sometimes that it must be very hard being old. (I am 51, probably seems old to some of you, but really just in the middle of my life, at least I hope so.)

I think how hard it must be, when you get really old, because then you are ALWAYS losing people you know and love, unless you die yourself before them.

Don't you think that will be hard to face, knowing that every year will bring death to someone you know, or to you yourself?

We will all get to that stage of life if we are lucky, and then we will probably wish that young people had more understanding and sympathy of OUR problems. . . of us having to eventually face our own deteriorating health and the prospect of our own death, not to mention those of everyone we know and love . . . on a daily basis.

I think we all need to be understanding and sympathetic of each other's griefs, to try to look at things from others' points of view, and not to compare our grief to others'. . . . and especially to be as nice as we can to older people, because I think it must be hard to be that old . . .and I hope that when I get there, that other people are kind to me.

But that's just my point of view on it.

Susan