Age DOES affect how tragic death is

[Bumpitybumper]

In the current climate and for obvious reasons, I see a lot of discussion about the average age of people dying from Coronavirus and how it is skewed significantly towards the elderly. Inevitably, this will lead to some claiming that this fact is irrelevant and a life is a life and any death is equally tragic. Talk of amending our approach towards the virus because of the average age of the people dying is shot down quickly. The implication being that any acknowledgement that the loss of an elderly person's life is less significant or tragic than a young person is implying that the elderly are expendable or don't matter.

To be clear, I don't think either of those things BUT I do think most people tend to find death more tragic and significant the younger the victim. My theory is that death is an inevitability for all of us, but there is a presumed "normal" lifespan and therefore young people that have died are viewed to have had less opportunity/experience and lost more years.

The ultimate test I believe is that if there was an emergency (e.g. burning building) most people would opt to save the younger person over an elderly person if only one could be saved. I think if children are involved then again most people would rescue them as a priority over adults.

So AIBU to think age does affect how we perceive death?

This thread is so stealth 'let the old people take the consequences', young people should be allowed to get on with it.

Of course there is a difference in dead of young and older people, but posters on this thread assume someone 65ish has lived their live and is expendable. News for you, you won't feel old when you have passed 50!

This way of dividing people into a competition of who is most pity-worthy or expendable is horrid. Next step with this kind of thinking is, are the disabled, the sen, the sick just as expendable, should it only be the young and healthy we protect as a society? And if you are mid 30ies and get a life limiting illness should we drop you like a hot potato and leave you to your own devices as is suggested with people over 50 on this thread?

I find the diversity of opinion on this thread interesting. Some posters have found the topic so offensive that they have reported it to MNHQ in an attempt to halt discussion whilst others have struggled to understand why I bothered starting the thread at all as it's obvious to them that a young person's death is more tragic.

@CeibaTree I don't know either, and it isn't something I've thought about either. My DM and MIL are 81 and 80 respectively and still leading fulfilling lives. I know other people who have been similarly active at that age.

By contrast, the husband of a close friend has Alzheimer's in his early 60s, which is horribly tragic.

I think the fact that people have attempted to shut down discussion altogether is a good example of how uncomfortable and in denial many people are when it comes to any sort of acknowledgement that death occurs

My mother's side of the family were all exceptionally long lived, even way back in the 19th century - the family history has been traced in detail. Quite a number of them lived into their late nineties and were still up and about. Every single one eventually succumbed to pneumonia/bronchitis. Its a standard cause of death in otherwise healthy, elderly people.

And also the way you live your life counts. Only distantly related, but my ex partner sustained a terrible head injury, one which caused risk of death. The surgeon asked me if he had ever done recreational drugs, even once, because that would affect his chances of recovering without opening his skull. Fortunately I was able to say that he had never done so confidently, he didn't undergo the messy and difficult surgery of having his skull opened up to relieve the pressure on his brain from the bleed, and he recovered quickly in about 6 months without surgery.

That really drove home to me how much influence the choices you make in life relating to health can affect your survivability chances when something goes wrong.

Haven’t RTFT because@ReallySpicyCurry’s post excellently summarizes my opinion. We’re lucky enough to live in first world countries in an era when we don’t expect to lose people young. Not complaining about this at all, it’s just a different mindset to previous generations and perhaps somewhat unrealistic.

I understand what you are saying OP but it obviously depends on the person who experiences the loss.

Losing my mum in her 80s was a bolt out of the blue. She wasn't previously ill. She was full of life and vitality and character and humour and love. It feels tragic to me. I think the older a person is, the longer you have loved them and the deeper the loss.

She lost a young baby many years ago. That child had no time to develop its character and personality but, to her, it was a very tragic loss. To me, it was very, very sad but incomparable to losing a developed soul.

My dh's gran is 81 years old and waiting to meet her maker. She is a happy person, enjoys her great grandchildren and in particular dotes on my ds. It will be sad when we lose her but she has lived a full life. She said she was sad when her own dh died but when she lost her son she didnt know if she could go on. She has buried two sons now and wants to go before she has to bury any other children. Her son, my fil died at 62 due to a blood clot. He had been poorly for a while but died suddenly and I felt like I had lost a limb. My dh was devastated. The hardest bit is still that my dd wants him to come back to her. We consoled ourselves in that dad got to see our children and he loved them. They still talk about him and have memories of their beloved grandad.

A friend lost her 3 year old son due to sepsis and I found that funeral particularly hard as my own son was just a bit younger. Her son didn't get a chance to grow and everyone at the funeral was grieving the life he should have had.

We lost a family friend at 39, she left behind a dh and three children aged 10, 8 and 8 months old. That was beyond tragic, she was full of life until cancer ravaged her. Her children have struggled and are still having to learn to live without their mum. Her youngest did not even celebrate a birthday with his mum and never got to call her mum. That saddens me because she wasn't much older than me and whilst it is never easy to lose a parent, adults can put things into perspective whereas young children can't.

When it comes to your own loved ones it really doesn't matter how old they are. It is still just as tragic regardless of age.

I think it must depend on how you have lived your life. David Attenborough is 94 and when he dies I would consider his death to be a tragic loss to the world.

When The Queen dies I will consider her death to be a tragic loss to the world.

I don't actually know anyone who has died from illness quite young at all. But 2 close friends committed suicide, and I know of several others who did so, all in their twenties/thirties. So I'm really concerned about the mental health aspects of this, especially as I heard of 2 suicides which occurred during lockdown, both in people who had suffered from depression in the past and who had taken up running as an effective way to tackle it. Cancel club runs and park runs and you take away that supportive structure. No-one seems to care or pay much attention to any of this though.

@giantangryrooster

This thread is so stealth 'let the old people take the consequences', young people should be allowed to get on with it.

Of course there is a difference in dead of young and older people, but posters on this thread assume someone 65ish has lived their live and is expendable. News for you, you won't feel old when you have passed 50!

This way of dividing people into a competition of who is most pity-worthy or expendable is horrid. Next step with this kind of thinking is, are the disabled, the sen, the sick just as expendable, should it only be the young and healthy we protect as a society? And if you are mid 30ies and get a life limiting illness should we drop you like a hot potato and leave you to your own devices as is suggested with people over 50 on this thread?

I completely disagree. No-one is talking about 50/60/70 or disabled. Most of the comments have been people's experiences with regards to those mid 80's and beyond. That is a normal life span. Anyone who reaches that age, has done really well. They may be healthy and full of life, and want to live, or they may be frail, have multiple comobidities, and have had enough, that's their choice.

I have noted on threads like this in the past, go have a read of Jennifer Worths "In the Midst of Life". Great book, and deals with a lot of the issues being discussed here.

“it is just as tragic regardless of age” . Then you are going to experience a lot of tragedy because as sure as eggs is eggs, at some point grandparents and parents will die. We all hope in the right order and not too soon, but die they will.

@Bumpitybumper The BBC1 Documentary 'The Shipman Files' actually investigates this point quite well. How he got away with it for so long due to it being older women. And that people were not quite as 'disgusted' as they were when it was discovered he also killed 2 4 year olds. It clearly demonstrated there was a case of 'they've lived their lives', yet they were still very active, not actually elderly women (mainly).

I knew someone who died of cancer at 23. I consider that tragic. My Mum died in her 60”s. It felt too soon but not tragic in the same way as she’d lived a fulfilling life- although she would’ve lived another 20 years. My Dad’s in his 80’s and although I’ll be sad when he dies, it won’t seem tragic like the 23-year-old, because he’s had a good long life. People don’t live forever.

• meant to say that my Mum would have gladly lived for another 20 years.

Another thread that confirms I live in an alternative universe to my - and thank Christ for that.

You can not quantify grief. You cannot tell people how they should feel at losing somebody close to them. A person dying of covid in their 70s may not seem particularly tragic to you but it may well do to their partner/child/sibling/parent.

Grief from bereavement is also cumulative - I speak as somebody who has lost far too many people, of varying ages, and yes, yes it bloody is tragic. Because it doesn’t matter what age someone is - once they are dead it means I am never going to see them again. And that is tragic to me, it is my tragedy. Don’t tell me what to feel.

This thread is so stealth 'let the old people take the consequences', young people should be allowed to get on with it

I have to disagree.

We need to talk about death and dieing and accept our own mortality.
Modern medicine has removed many fatal illness from our lives, that we have almost forgotten how fragile life can be.
Covid-19 has brought it back into the spotlight, highlighting the fragility of our elderly as well as everyone else who is in the shielding group.

We need to have the conversation about deth, however uncomfortable it may be.

Yanbu. Many years ago now one of my best friends died suddenly from a massive heart attack aged 26. It still remains the most heartbreaking thing that I’ve gone through, more so than my grandparents who I adored because they’d lived their lives and it was the correct order of things. It was a huge shock and such an unbearable loss

I don't understand why so many people, on both sides of this argument, are conflating 'the death of an 85 year old is not as tragic as the death of a 25 year old' to 'the death of an 85 year old doesn't matter'. They're not the same statement at all and I think one is true and the other isn't.

This thread makes such depressing reading.

What sort of a society have we become?

My DF led a full and active life until a few months before he died aged 98. He raised thousands of pounds for various charities in his retirement years and taught adult literacy to the homeless. He was active in church charities and a PCC councillor.

His contribution to society post 80 is a lot greater than some of those we saw drinking in the streets (of whatever age) and defying the rules who only think of themselves.

It really isn't that simple.

@Ylvamoon. I agree, death is part of life and previous generations unfortunately had to deal with it all the time. We’re lucky that we don’t, modern medicine has made it more of a shock.

There is no comforting words when a child or younger person dies unexpectedly / suddenly. None.

But a 90-year-old body has started to wear out. If someone dies at 92 years old, there is the knowledge that “they’ve lived a long life” and “gone before loosing dignity/ independence/ capacity/ quality of life”. Obviously no one wishes it to happen, the death can be just as sad, but not a tragedy.

My DF led a full and active life until a few months before he died aged 98

That's fantastic, it really is. My GM was 103 when she died, she was till an active member of the community. They were very lucky to be in that position. But for every one of them are 10 others, bed bound possibly, or certainly housebound, sitting in front of the TV all day and waiting.

@Snog

I find the idea of people dying alone being actively denied the chance to say goodbye to loved ones inhumane. Nobody should have to endure this.

It's awful. My Dad didn't know if he was alone or not as he was in a coma but we have had to grieve without having been able to be at his funeral or the scattering of his ashes. I have not been able to say goodbye properly, nor will I ever be able to. To me that is tragic.

Basically I don't think we're emotionally equipped any more to make the sort of decisions we're being asked to make during this pandemic. 100 years ago, in my area anyway, old people would have been told to read their Bible and thank God for the life they'd had and try and make a good death. I don't advocate for that either by the way, but I think the issue now is that we're trying to save everyone and everything all at once, because we live in a society where we generally can have everything we want and the doctors usually fix us all, and actually it's becoming obvious that it's not working this time, something is going to give,but we don't have any control over what it's going to be because we've lost that slightly callous "well everyone dies" attitude that was such a part of humanity for millenia

I think this is very true, and a fantastic post. I think it's a real shock when modern medicine doesn't live up to our expectations of it - I remember feeling that very strongly during recurrent miscarriage, even though I knew rationally that no one knew why it had happened and no one could stop it I had a very strong emotional reaction that it must be possible to do something and there must be an answer. It was I guess the first time my body hadn't done more or less what I wanted and it was a big shock - obviously it's a huge privilege to get to your late 20s before having that moment but I don't think it's unusual any more, either. Modern medicine can do so much that we can easily slip into thinking it can do anything.