I'm not sure if this belongs here but since you had your children do you seem much more

[OrmIrian]

aware of how fleeting life is? I am more and more conscious that my life is very finite and I've used up more than half of it (probably). Until they were born the future was this vague amorphous almost infinite thing, now it is limited because I realised that their future isn't going to be mine. Theirs will continue after mine has ended. And it has brought up all kinds of feelings about my parents and my childhood.

If I could beleive in the afterlife (of whatever kind), now is the time I'd appreciate it. But I can't. Anyone else gripped by a vague feeling of panic about running out of time?

Life is finite whether you have children or not. You say you can't believe in an afterlife. But can you rule it out?

No. I can't. But the logical part of me doesn't beleive it. I was brought up in the Christian church but I no longer beleive. I think that fighting your way out of religious beleifs that aren't your own is actually easier than trying to take them back on again.

You don't have to have the same beliefs that you rejected during childhood.

Yes, I am grimly aware of my own mortality.

oh god yes - especially as came into this motherhood lark Very Late Indeed.

Why so grimly, motherinferior?

Because I am not hog-whimpering wild about the idea of getting old and dying. Or about my babies getting old and dying.

And everyone else's too MI? That's what I find so hard to handle. Everyone is going to die. Which sounds stupid. But it hasn't ever really struck me as so real before. A fact which, once you really grasp it, makes life seem very different.

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Many, if not most of us are lucky enough not to see our own children getting old and dying. But surviving to be v old (like the late Queen Mum) usually means losing almost all the people you ever loved and most of the things you loved about yourself. Oh dear, I'm turning into Marvin the Paranoid Android.

Yes definitely. As soon as I had DS1 I became quite a hypo, going to the doctors for every little thing, because I was so afraid of dying & leaving him.

I have been thinking a lot about all this again recently as there have been two very young people (one of which was an 11 year old girl) in my small town, killed very suddenly in car accidents.

I worry so much about something happening & me not being around for my children.

Not since having children, no. With me, it's just to do with getting older.

Although I'll have to be either very old or very ill before I really panic about the non-existence of an after life. I think I'll kid myself on quite happily.

Very sensible pointydog. Maybe this is 'the long dark teatime of the soul' I'm experiencing. To refer to hitchikers again...

Having kids made me reassess my life, and put areas right where I felt things had gone wrong.

This included going back to church, but also things like where we lived, where would be a "good" place to bring up children.

I've also grown more contented about what happens after death, and that I have a "legacy" in my children

I'm sure you'll feel better tomorrow, orm

Rather than being aware of how fleeting life is, I think I'm developing a more immortal need. Whereas before I didn't mind getting into all sorts of potentially dangerous situations, now the only idea that comes to my mind is "I can not die" someone has to take care of DS so, I'm restraining myself somewhat.

I know what you mean about worrying about missing out on the dc's life after we're gone, but in a funny way explaining death to ds1 has made me more accepting of it. As a Muslim I do believe in life after death and I think I might have done too good a job explaining it as ds1 once said to me "It's taking a long time to go back to Allah", lol.

I seem to remember reading somewhere that your children are a story that you start but will never finish. I hate losing a book halfway through so I guess this one will drive me mad.....

I wish I had some belief. I really do. I am envious of those that do. But wanting it doesn't make it happen.

Xenia has just posted the following in another thread, which is something that was hanging on a wall in my primary school and has been with me ever since. It reminds me of our tranisitional nature within the life of our children, and someway it has made me aware that children are just passing by, not for us to keep or for us to be with them forever, but as an oportunity to contibute to their life as much as we can while they are near by:

On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

hard-nosed xenia posted that?

The opposite really, I now feel I will live on through my chidren. If that amkes sense.

I nursed a lady once who was over 104. her children ahd all passed, her grandchildren were going too . I would hate that. But I don't want to die either.

I ahd that poem at DS3's naming ceremony

I firmly reject all religious belief. Knowing that death is the final end means that if anything, I do less than i used to, because i know that I only have here and now to savour and enjoy. Mustn't rush it or over-fill it.

Th post about your children being a story you start but that never gets finished made me feel so sad. The thought of not being around to see the world with my ds one day isn't one that's ever really crossed my mind before.
Before ds I didn't really bother myself with living life to the full etc, or the concept that "it's not a rehearsal" etc etc. I thought well, my life is only one out of billions. What does it matter if it's a bit dreary in places, nothing particularly noteworthy happens and it's just a mediocre one in all respects? Who is to mind if I don't make the most of it? Once I'm dead I'm dead, I won't be able to lament it (I don't believe in an afterlife). That's not a "ooh poor me my life's so dull" thing, it was lovely. Just that I didn't think it important to "experience" stuff if you get my drift.
But now ds is here, and he has got such a potentially long time in front of him to live a lovely life, it's made me think that I'd be disrespectful to his future if I didn't use mine with care and consideration.
Not sure if that made sense. And not really about death, but more about how to use the space between now and death.
Gosh how deep for a Tuesday morning at work when I should be working on a presentation about a transportation strategy.