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?

It seems ridiculous to me that seems as self evident as the OPs original post could be disputed. My own experience certainly bears it out.
My dad died of cancer in his early fifties and it was devastating. But on balance it wasn’t as sad as the colleague whose son was killed in a silly accident when he was 20. His dad had to make a terrible phone call to the caterers booked for his 21st and ask them to change the date and cater his funeral instead. Or my daughter’s friend who died of meningitis and was buried on what should have been her 18th birthday. All three of them died young but at least my dad lived long enough to experience the joys of falling in love, having children and achieving some of his life goals.

My mum is 89. If she died of Covid or anything else it would be terrible for us as a family but not as terrible as it would be if my 23 year old niece died of it. Nor would it be as sad if I die at 60 as it would be if my child died at 26.

When my Mum died in her late 80s, it was very sad and i miss her terribly every day

You were her mum and expected her to die before you.

If you were her spouse and she was your everything, you may be much more broken.

It’s really not as simple a comparison is it? The ethical issues are very complex. Avoidable deaths are avoidable deaths and tragic regardless of age. Rightly or wrongly, family will grieve the loss of their seventy-six year-old parent more than a nine year old dying in Syria.

It just leads to more almost Nazi like questions when one talks about comparing the worth of people in cohorts. Things like DNACPR decisions can only ever morally and legally be made on an individual basis.
Otherwise you start asking a 22 year-old with complex needs or a healthy 71 year-old in full time work? A young child with a genetic predisposition to an inherited degenerative neuromuscular disease or a 57 year old alcoholic?
Who are we to place a value on anyone’s life?

I don't have TRFT to see a lot of ageist shite.

Oh, and the OP hasn't been back - quelle surprise

Fuck your burning buildings.

Some people have different perceptions of old. Some think over 50 is old. My dad died at 65, which I class as young old, but I had people say ‘well he had a good long life’. No he didn’t, because 65 is not old in my view. I think anyone who dies under 90 has had their life cut short.

Age and circumstance can make the difference on how it effects you.

I suspect, certainly looking on the comments here, a 40yo mum dying leaving 2 young children would be viewed as more tragic than a 40yo single man.

But I think the ageist comments on here are very much to do with not so much at least they've had a full life, but more that they were going to die soon, so they don't really matter.

The first person I knew who died of covid was very much in the "expendable" category. She was 70 (just) and had brittle asthma. Having got covid she was going to be pretty susceptible.
She also went into school to do volunteer reading, washed up at the local homeless café, looked after her grandchildren twice a week, did flower arranging for church, played bridge, liked walking in the countryside, sewed costumes for one of the local am dram clubs, and had a water colour exhibition of her own paintings last year which raised nearly £2k for charity.
She, other than asthma, was healthy, active and had no reason why she wouldn't see her 80th birthday.

That is still a life cut short and in that respect is a tragedy.

@nearertonature

When my Mum died in her late 80s, it was very sad and i miss her terribly every day

You were her mum and expected her to die before you.

If you were her spouse and she was your everything, you may be much more broken.

I don't think you read all of what the PP wrote did you? tragic.

@nearertonature and I see where you are coming from but the care homes around me are mainly residents with dementia that are being kept alive, usually by the families as they 9 times out of 10 have full power of attorney. They get chest infections etc that probably would have turned to pneumonia, which years ago would have killed many elderly, and they are treated with antibiotics to prolong their life even longer. Some lie in bed all contorted, can’t speak, can’t move etc, incontinent how is that life?

I will be looking into a living will so I can make my medical decisions while of sound mind in case I should ever develop dementia, I don’t want kept alive at all costs

There's more involved than age but older person has lived their life so while their loss can be very sad, it's not tragic as it is when a child dies having never had the chance to grow up, build a family etc...

@user128472578267

I think it's desperately sad that we allow elderly people to suffer so much at the end of their lives that everyone is relieved when they do die. That's pretty tragic.

As someone who had worked in dementia units, I agree wholeheartedly. I will make plans take my own life at the first hint of dementia.

we live in a society where we generally can have everything we want and the doctors usually fix us all

If that is your experience of life, you are very lucky!

OP I am not sure where you are going with this thread, but the undercurrent of some comments is that some lives are worth saving more than others, and that worth is determined by age, which I find very troubling. Apart form the ageism, it is a slippery slope to determining worth by other factors.

Covid deaths are tragic, all of them, because they are deaths that have happened earlier than would otherwise have been the case.

I’m hiding this thread now as I really don’t like it.

@InOutandidontmind

Extrapolating that view, it would be easier to lose a parent at 8 and easier still as a toddler

Really?

My partner died in an accident and our DD was 11months old, are you saying she didn't want her mum? giving her formula instead of the breast?
You didn't comfort her when she wake up screaming for her mummy, no memories, just photos and stories.

When my Mum died in her late 80s, it was very sad and i miss her terribly every day but its not the same as the death of a much younger person, whose death also ends an awful lot of dreams and ambitions.

You are both agreeing. The words you’re quoting are from a post disagreeing, as I do, with the suggestion that losing a parent as a teenager affects you less than losing one when older because you have known them for less time.

I’m so sorry for what happened to your family. It’s heartbreaking, and the person you’re quoting would totally agree.

I lost my father when I was a teen, what you are saying is pure bollocks. The longer you have them the worse it gets pure crap. And more crap. I needed my father alive when I was a child far more than I need my mother now that I’m a fully fledged adult and her an old woman.

It isn't right to say it is bollocks because your experience was different. I lost my father when I was a bit younger than you. When my father died my mother kept us safe, kept us fed, made sure we knew we were loved and yes it was sad he died but 40 years later when she died it affected me far more.

Your experience is different to mine, it doesn't mean you're right or I'm right, we are both entitled to our own feelings and experiences.

Who are we to place a value on anyone’s life?

Well one thing may be to ask the people themselves what they think. A lot of this ‘saving elderly frail people at all costs’ comes from middle aged people not wanting to lose them. Older people are aware of their own mortality, generally and don’t want to live forever anyway.

It’s interesting in your examples that all of the people are below the UK’s actual life expectancy.

Thank you @goisey

[quote AlaskaThunderfuckHiiiiiiiii]@nearertonature and I see where you are coming from but the care homes around me are mainly residents with dementia that are being kept alive, usually by the families as they 9 times out of 10 have full power of attorney. They get chest infections etc that probably would have turned to pneumonia, which years ago would have killed many elderly, and they are treated with antibiotics to prolong their life even longer. Some lie in bed all contorted, can’t speak, can’t move etc, incontinent how is that life?[/quote]
No most aren’t ‘being kept alive’. All will have had discussions regarding ceilings of care.
Killing people is a very different and dangerous step.

I agree that people have become unused to and fearful of death and when they hear that the average life expectancy is 83 they expect that to be how long everyone lives. Whilst in reality for it to be the average some will die younger and some older than that.

There's a doctor whose name I have forgotten who argues against spending so much resource on trying to find cures for cancer. He argues that we have to die of something and that we are deluding ourselves if we think we can prevent death. He argues that death from cancer is not always a bad death provided there is good pain management. People often have time to get their affairs in order, and say goodbye to their loved ones. But society's expectation that everyone should live till they're in their 80s might get in the way of allowing people to have a good death.

I watched a documentary a while back where doctors in America did not feel able to tell patients that further treatment was pointless and detrimental to quality of life. This meant patients would keep opting for more and more treatment that might have awful side effects and increase their suffering beyond it having any benefit. The patients seemed to be in denial about their impending death. I think that can be very hard for family and loved ones - who may be in denial too but who also might want to know the patient's last wishes and properly say their goodbyes. Of course there might also be the spectre of profit too - in a paid for medical system.

So rather than focus on age and the respective value of lives I'd rather focus on how we enable people to have quality of life in the last months and days of their lives to maximise the chances of a good death. Sadly I think for Covid patients in ICU it might be quite a bad death - respiratory illness can be very unpleasant. And dying without your loved ones to say goodbye or hold your hand and comfort you in your last hours. And what's a bad death for patients is often a bad death for their loved ones harrowed by the thought of them suffering alone.

And finally if a building was on fire I'd prioritise helping those least able to help themselves to get out - inevitably that would be old people and children. I'd not leave them behind or let them be stampeded by the able bodied.

Oh, let's not do the burning building test on MN. Half would let their family burn to save the family pet.

For me, personally age does matter.

My dad is 85. He’s out lived his average life expectancy already. He’s supposed to die before me as he’s 45 years older. I’d find it hard to be devastated.

My mum died at 40. That’s no age and was far more tragic than my dad going in his 80s (he’ll probably live well into his 90s to be honest) will ever be.

My dad doesn’t see it that way though.

He’s one of those people who wants to be kept alive at all costs. When his mother died at 98, he was raging that his brother agreed to a DNR, and insists that I never do that to him, despite me telling him they don’t just bring you back to life like in films, he’d be on a ventilator with broken ribs and unconscious. He won’t listen.

I think if the virus had been much worse and healthcare really needed to be rationed, then the old three score year and ten should apply. This happened in Italy (well, the hotspots) at the height of the pandemic.

I remember reading about a study in which participants were offered a hypothetical situation in which all disease and illness is eradicated for everybody, but in return people are “eliminated” at 70. Guess who didn’t think this was a good idea?

To be clear families with LPA cannot insist on treatment that is not being offered. Any treatments are a clinical decision. They can refuse consent for treatment; they cannot ‘force people to stay alive’.

My DD died , my parents were in their 80’s and 90’s when they died. We can be deeply distressed and sad at the passing of anyone. But children or very young adults dying is too much to bear. When I was 15 my friends sister died, she was 17. Whenever I feel exceptionally low I think Suzanne never got to experience anything at all. The absolute pain of losing my DD even. To feel pain about loved ones dying shows you are still alive.

I think it’s all about what we as a society perceive as a “good” death vs a “bad” death rather than age per se.
So dying at a very old age, having lived a full life, peacefully in your bed, surrounded by living family = “good”
Dying at that same age as a result of an assault = “bad”

But of course, young people by definition cannot have a “good” death because as a society we define it as above - at a grand old age.

And of course the younger the person, generally the more “bad” we consider the death - so more tragic.

@Valkadin so sorry for your loss.