And that's creepy as **** to me. I imagine dying being me in a hospital bed, having the most severe panic attack ever, desperately clutching at anybody within reach and begging them for help. No part of me wants any of it, no matter how depressed I might get. I mean, maybe a little part, or else I wouldn't be depressed.

Or if your wife of 35 years knows how to correctly settle your affairs so she's taken care of. Or not getting to know your grandchildren. Or not being able to take care of your son anymore. Or putting an extremly obsessive burden on your beautiful girlfriend you met in 1980. Or crushing your parents, sisters, and friends.

In the OP I mentioned the doctor saying "he's gone" and how it immediately crushed me. Death is not about you. It's about those you leave behind and what you meant to them from their very core and the hole you leave behind.

When you get older and you start to wear down I think most people get more comfortable with it. A little different for everyone I guess. It sounds like you have a really strong survival instinct. Over time it should start to feel more right.

You're very sentimental and a little narcissistic. Life goes on.

I guess I'm just a narcissist. Or having never had a friend or family member I was at all close to die makes death into more of an idea than a reality. But most of my thoughts of my own death are pretty self-involved.

Quite possibly. I might not have much going on or much hope for a better life, but for the moment the thought of listening to the next album I've been fiending for, or the next comic book that might blow my mind, or that next game of disc golf, or having lunch with my one friend in life, etc, basically makes any thought of suicide seem like robbing myself of more awesome ****, even if many people would consider those goals to be pretty shallow. Death just seems as boring as it scary tbh.

I'm ready for it. I just worry about those who will still be breathing after I'm gone. 20 years ago me, Linda, Sherri and Mike moved across the country all alone. Made us ridiculously close for obvious reasons. We don't have a single extended family member closer than 2,000 miles from us.

I've always been the foundation. The brick for the 4 of us.

You get what I'm saying?

You're jaded beyond belief. What the **** is your life deal? How did you get to this place? Again what the **** is your life deal? You seem to have zero empathy. Zero emotional attachment. Zero consideration for other's opinions and emotions. You are straight out the coldest human being I've ever met.

A rock has more empathy than you. Prick is too nice a word dude.

I highly doubt OH is the warmest person in any context, but I suspect if I met him in real life with a few beers/six-packs between us he'd be pretty chill and relaxed and oddly personable. Our most outrageous personality traits are generally magnified online.

Let's remember that everyone handles death differently and try to keep it from getting too heated, folks.

This kinder, gentler Chris kinda makes me want to puke.

Ya, that's the frosting version of a person. It's the cake version that really counts.

I mean, I've traded blows with a ton of you folks through the years, but this guy is taking it to a really different level.

SOULS FOR SALE: $199.99 special price. Good until midnight tonight.

Except that you don't know anything about him but what he puts out on the internet, and that is filtered through your prejudices and expectations. OH might not hold back with his opinions, but other than that and a few life stories he's not really an open book on this forum. Yeah, he's negative and nihilistic and callous, but those words don't necessarily define him as a complete person. I took my good sweet time before deciding that you were in fact a super nerd with a working class Boston front to make you seem less dorky than you really are. But that's still an internet assessment that might be completely off base.

.

Some people are a mixture of both but all of us on somewhere on the spectrum between the two.

You need to get a better dog.
Why? Was he in your way and wouldn't move?
Even Trump?
Don't worry Batty: don't you know we're all figments of your deranged imagination? When you die, we cease to exist. Comforting, isn't it?
Do you mean an older person gets a more "well what can you do, all gotta die some time" view, or that people expect older people to die more than they would a younger person: "she's what, eighty now? Had a good run" etc.?
You're right here. Once you lose someone close (don't wish it on you, man, but it will happen) your whole perspective changes through 180 degrees. Believe me. It gets very real.

Christ you even doctored my post to make it seem more vicious. I actually said a "little" narcissistic. Are you having like a male menopause type of thing? Plus, we haven't "met" but there's plenty people colder than me. I don't get weepy very often, I expect everything living to die, but I don't **** people over to get ahead either. I'm not nearly as cold as the people who wrecked your business, for example. I'm just live and let live. Like if there's a car crash and the person died, I don't care. I'm not upset about it even if I see their body. What can I do? But if someone is in a jam like they need a jump or an old dude is lost and can't understand his GPS I'll even be like follow me even if it's out of my way. I just don't get all emo about ****. You're blowing this out of proportion. I'm the kind of person who hates getting sympathy cards at work. I hate being asked to sign that ****, too. What ****ing good does it do?

Different strokes, dude.

Since I see we're including talking about the death of pets here, let me give you my story. Hey! Where are you all going? Hell, I'm gonna relate it anyway.

Bruce was the first real experience I had with the death of a pet. Bruce was our big golden retriever/labrador mongrel, and he suffered from epilepsy. We helped him through many a fit, but at one point I got a call in work from my mam, telling me she had had to have Bruce put to sleep. I just dropped the phone and made it to the toilets as the tears came. One of the guys, sent in after me to see what was wrong, asked was I ok and I told him. The audible contempt in his voice when he realised I was crying over a pet really angered me: it was like he was saying “Oh I thought it was something important.” He never had a pet, he could never know what I was feeling.

Next up was Bruce's replacement, Teddy, a big black mastiff/pitbull mongrel with a terrific personality, but eventually he got old and began to lose control of his bodily functions. My brother and I went to do the deed, but I couldn't stay; he did, as the vet eased poor Teddy out of this world.

After this, I had nowhere to run. My mam was dead, brother was married and moved out, and when I got a call in work on Christmas Eve of, I think, 2000, maybe 2001, to say Bonnie, one of our cats, was making an awful noise and seemed in pain I had to ask one of the guys to give me a lift home. He very helpfully stayed, waited while I lifted Bonnie into her cat carrier (she was so limp I basically scooped her in, mewling pathetically – she may as well have been a towel) and brought me down to the vet, where I learned that Bonnie's habit of running away every time I went to dose the three of the cats for fleas had caught up with her: basically, the fleas had sucked her dry of blood. She had to be put down, she was in such pain. We had the worst Christmas ever.

That left two of my original cats. Spooky was next. She was basically my cat, and when we got the three kittens as replacements for Bonnie (only intended to get one originally, that became two and then three in the end) she did not take to them, bullying them and hissing at them and chasing them, and I said to her “When they grow up they're going to remember this.” And they did. She was a delicate cat, and for the last six months of her life lived on her nerves. She used to wait outside my room till I came home from work then claw to get in, to get away from the kittens. We tried keeping her in a special cage, at the vet's suggestion, for a few months but it was clear she had no kind of life. The night I had to take her down to the vet to be put down was one of the hardest of my life, and I don't think I ever cried as much as I dismantled that cage that night on my return from the vet, putting it out in the back garden for disposal as soon as possible.

Debbie was the last, so far. She had gone basically blind. It's a horrible thing, watching their trusting little face looking up at you and hearing their little heart slow, then they go cold and they're gone. I think it's the trust, the “you're not going to hurt me are you? You love me. I'm safe with you, aren't I?” that hits the hardest. You feel like you're betraying them, but when they're in pain what else can you do? You can't force them to remain alive in pain just because you're too much of a wuss to man up and do what needs to be done, end their suffering.

Nobody will understand this unless they have a pet. It's like losing a family member. It really is.

I'm saying you get ****ing tired man. It doesn't mean you want to blow your brains out it just means you start thinking this book has gone on long enough. I don't really need another chapter. Even novelty loses its novelty. It seems like it would get scarier and scarier as it inevitably approaches but that fear is softened by exhaustion and resignation.

OK I get it. I wasn't sure. Personally, I'm 54 and want to live to be 154, as long as I have all my faculties. I'm not fixing to die any time soon. Plus, I have more than my own selfish concerns to consider.

Has it ever occurred to you that you're so self-righteous you can't even smell your own ****?

If it had, he wouldn't be, would he? Catch 22.

Really? I love animals and that, but na.

The word "selfish" hints that you might getting that feeling, too. Acceptance isn't at all the same as being suicidal.

Yeah. That's how people are. If they wouldn't feel it they don't think you should either. I've heard it said that losing a dog hurts some people more than losing a parent. I can't tell them what they're feeling.

For some people it is, though. You're not them.

The pet thing has always been weird for me. When I was a little kid I'd cry pretty hard when a pet died, and my mom is a pet collector so there were plenty of pets to cry over, from cats to goldfish to hamsters to dogs. Then I got older and more jaded about **** in general and for years I wouldn't even get teary eyed when a pet died. Then a couple years ago this cat who'd really bonded with me died and I was just the biggest, dribbliest, sobbiest wreck. I think it's actually been a good thing though, cause even though I've had countless pets die, there's always been a new one. Not that they replace the first pet, but the first pet had its own special, unique place in my life, but even if that place was now empty that didn't mean that pet #2 wouldn't find their own place in my life that would eventually feel like a necessary component to my existence. Life just goes on and brings new things that don't diminish the old things, and with that comes a change to the feeling of life itself.

I've had one pet in my life that we had to put to sleep but I was so young at the time I hadn't really bonded with the dog much and didn't feel much empathy. But soon after, we got 2 related dogs and I've pretty much had them since I started remembering most things. I love my dogs, more so one over the other. But there's a major bond and sometimes it keeps me up at night wondering when they might die and how heartbroken I would be. I'd had special real bonding times with them my whole life and my life would just feel weird without them. Sucks because they're getting into that old age now. Those signs are there like infections and episodes and fits. All these problems are not getting much better, although not much worse yet. But it's inevitable, and I dread the day it happens, so I try to comfort them as much as possible and give them the best last days I can give them. This thread is depressing.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/wel...eyes/?referer=

Yes even Trump. Humans over animals every single time.

Agreed mate.

I've heard that. You treat your dog better than you treat people. Damn straight. It's not all dogs. I don't give a **** about someone else's dog. Dogs are the only real ride or die homies you'll ever have. I'm inclined to return the sentiment.

Humans are animals.

Your mom is an animal.

Yeah. I heard you and your small ***got dick couldn't handle her.

I've understood and accepted death for a long time.. When I was 18, I watched my dad suffer through 6 months of lung cancer before finally dying. I cried for about 3 minutes, and haven't shed a tear or thought much about it since. He talked to me about **** because he knew I understood these things and didn't treat him differently. I remember the day he finally lost his faith in beating it and he told me, "I don't think I'm going to make it threw the summer". I said something along the lines of trying to enjoy the time he had left.

I guess I'm dead inside, but death is a non-factor for the most part. I understand death is a part of life. Yes, it can be sad but life goes on, we all die, it's expected. The real bitch is losing people who aren't dead, that's when I have trouble dealing with loss. When the people you want in your life are still around, but too busy doing their own thing or you've had a falling out.

Agreed with the last sentence. If a dog bonds with you and would give its life to protect yours, then it would be a betrayal if you weren't willing to do the same. If you aren't willing to save your animal from a burning building then you probably shouldn't own anything above a fish.

"I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live."

Of course everyone's body dies, but that's not the end of you. You are more than your body. Your trepidation could be interpreted as evidence of you being more than the physical. And yet, the physical is essential to humanity. Hence the resurrection. We can get new, glorified bodies.

I'm not judging you. I hope all the best for you. This post will get shit on, I know. But I had to put that out there for you, Batlord, because I care about you and your eternal destiny.

That's an insult to people's ****.

As long as Satan sucks my dick real good at least once I'll be good.

Bu do you or have you owned a pet? Other than a monkey, of course.
No, I just mean I have to consider what my dying would mean to the most important one left behind, who relies on me for, well, life basically.
This is exactly right. You don't just go out and replace your beloved pet, of course, but after a suitable time you should really. You can then lavish all the love you had on your pet who passed away on the new pet. It's always different every time though: you never forget each pet who dies, and one does not, as you say, replace the other in any real meaningful way.
Just remember, when the time comes, you can't be selfish. When it's time to let them go, just do it. Don't keep them hanging on in pain or misery.

Bolded: Yeah, who woulda thought it? :rolleyes:
What about cats, though?
But Trump is an animal.
Sorry but I'm a little offended at that. There's no comparison. Dead is dead; losing touch you always have the chance of a reconciliation or chance meeting.

All right.