As The World Shrinks

I'm certain many feel this way.

As I age and watched death consume family and friends, Vickie being the most painful, I find myself occasionally looking into those from the past. Each time I find someone has passed my world feels smaller. This past year I discovered an aunt a cousin and my fathers best friend passed away over the past several years. Today I discovered my first wife died in November of 2020. She was 65. She was a medical scientist and died 1 year after retiring. We parted on good terms but didn't keep in touch. For me when it's over it's over. But it still made my world even smaller. I did keep in touch with her mom for a while however. Yes I got along well with my mother-in-law. I learned today she passed in 2010.
They don't have to be in our lives to feel the loss. Each one learned to be gone shrinks my world. I've been doing it alone for 2 years come next Tuesday yet the days each of them were there is still remembered.

The world continues to shrink yet to discover who else has left this world. Death is finality to those of us remaining.

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nonsensiclesnail · F

When my father’s last brother died, he’s the last of his immediate family, he expressed something very very similar to me. I’m actually terrified of this sort of finality.

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nonsensiclesnail · F

@Gibbon Im glad you have an idea of what to do. Im sorry any of us have and need to think about this. But tis only the bureaucracy of life. You are still here and very much alive and don't let anyone allow you to forget that.
Im beginning to understand, my grandmother telling me how weird it was to see that old lady in the mirror because that wasn't her. I dont feel any different t that I did 30 year ago, I jsut know more.

Gibbon · 70-79, M

@nonsensiclesnail Same here. I still feel my youth but physically the last two years could have taken better care of myself. It sucks to have my inner child yelling at me.

nonsensiclesnail · F

@Gibbon same. My inner child is very sarcastic and really mouthy.

AngelUnforgiven · 51-55, F

Ive mentioned on here before that ive been around death my whole life. I was going to funerals it seemed every other month at one time and then it just stopped. I grew up in a rough area. The day that we moved in, that night i saw someone get murdered. Right outside my window. Heard an argument, peaked out the binds, and BOOM! The guy who did it saw me a few days later after police left the scene for the final time. He was walking towards me with an automatic weapon, i was 9. He looked at me and said "You didnt see nothing the other night" so i repeated it! "I didn't see nothing! " and i kept walking. Years later he and 2 of his brothers were murdered. That's a story for another day. Even in college i couldn't escape it. I went to one football game my whole entire life and 2 rows ahead of me, a kid that i grew up with got his head blown off. It was like in slow motion. I watched the guy walk up to him from behind and pull the trigger. All the guys in neighborhood were asking me who did it so that they could get revenge again i said, " i didn't see nothing! " my mom died a week after that. A month later i moved away from there and never looked back.

Thinkerbell · 41-45, F

"Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee."
— John Donne

PatKirby · M

@Thinkerbell

A fine and appropo prosaic quote. Aside from Robert Frost, John Donne is a favorite of mine. In frontier American terms, as Clint Eastwood's William Muny in "Unforgiven" notes..

[i]Will: "It's a hell of a thing killing a Man
You take away all he's Got
And all he's ever gonna Have"

Kid: "Well I guess he had it Coming!"

Will "We all have it coming Kid"

[media=https://youtu.be/7lYVggyHRkY][/i]

Kaetana · 56-60, F

Yes it’s clique but true the only things in life we can be certain of are death & taxes.

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