To not understand how this can happen?

[PostKieron]

I’ve just been thinking about things recently in the run up to Xmas - family life, family life when I was a kid etc .. just aspects of day to day life really.

Anyway - I was just thinking how in the 80s my mum had a really good family friend … we used to go and visit her house often - only a mile or so from ours - she used to make lovely coffee etc etc. I can remember in particular one lovely evening in June 1986 we spent in her house. Also my parents & I were invited to her daughter’s wedding in the summer of 1989 - it was lovely.

Anyway - I found out around a week ago that this lady has been dead over 25 years!! - since 2000 - and I never knew about it! She was my mums friend and my mum died in 1998 and I never saw this lady after that.

It’s just strange how our lives can dramatically change - this lovely wedding in the summer of 1989 - but within 11 years of that date BOTH my mum and this lady were dead … how it can go from this kindly lady giving me Easter Eggs etc as a kid to her being dead 25 years and me not knowing about it !

Anyone else feel their lives have changed dramatically over the years with massive changes in social relationships, habits etc?

It scares me to think about who'll be next, and who'll be gone in another ten years. I would never have expected some of the deaths from the last decade.

I hear you OP. I often (more so now I’m in my 60s) think of all the people we knew as kids and how they’re no longer here including both of my parents. They were living, loving people and now they’re gone. It’s so hard to explain

Yes sentiments expressed in this thread really resonate with me.

someone said earlier that they feel a disconnect with their childhood. Yes agree! Mine seems almost dreamlike…. And, did it really happen?!

agree also that this time of year makes us reminisce more and be far more introspective.

Omg I agree so much with everything said here

I go to visit my dad’s brother and his wife. They’re in the late 80s now. They always spent Christmas with us in the 70s. The excitement when they arrived! My aunt’s voice still reminds me of those magical times x

I know exactly what you mean OP

Thank you everyone for your contributions to this thread and your understanding of this phenomenon.

Going back to my OP, I think why I was particularly surprised to hear the lady had died was this -

Around the time when we were invited to her daughter’s wedding, it was clear that her husband was the one of the two who had the more serious illness. In early 1989, it was thought that the husband wouldn’t make it to the summer of that year for his daughter’s wedding. So he seemed to have a ‘life threatening’ illness as early as 1989.

You might be surprised to learn that I can’t really recall seeing or speaking to this lady’s husband - he never seemed to be in the house when we visited. So I had no connection with him. I knew this lady from visits, Easter eggs, Xmas presents etc.

So I looked on Rightmove and found their house had been sold in 2006 - I assumed that the husband possibly died, and the lady wanted to downsize. Or her husband had possibly outlived expectations and they’d both downsized. Seeing there was no history of illness with the lady, if she’d downsized in 2006 there was a fair chance she could still be alive. So me finding out she’d actually died in early 2000 - 25 and a half years ago - was a shock.

the other thing that’s I’ve found out within the past month - another even closer family friend died in the spring of 2024. Hadn’t seen her since the end of 2018 and she’d moved away - she was 90 - but still ..

Another thing that took place this year - a small private sports club that I’ve been going to basically since I was born in the 70s permanently closed last January! I also worked there in my late teens - it was such a fabric of my early life although I hadn’t used the facilities admittedly since around 1999 - I’m so gutted! I feel my childhood’s being ripped apart !

This reminds me of the time I discovered that my grandmother's old house had been demolished.