Was there an age when people you knew started dropping like flies?

When I was in my forties an fifties a number of my friends lost their partners and one of my friends committed suicide.

Our families, our friends, our associations… yours and mine… don’t drop “like flies”.

We are human beings. Unlike animals, we strive for dignity.

It all started two years ago for me. (that would be age 40)

I started losing relatives and friends in my 40s and 50s, and it has sped up exponentially in the decades since. Losing parents and other relatives is hard enough, but boy, losing friends and others your own age, people you grew up with, is sobering.

As you get older it gets more likely you’ll lose people, but it happens at any age. I lost three family members in nine months when I was twelve. It’s just a crapshoot.

No. I’m 70 now, but my relatives who passed have been spaced out over many years. My paternal grandparents died in their late 80’s in the 1960’s.

My parents were the first in their generation to go, 25 years ago, because they both smoked their entire, shortened adult lives. Their brothers and sisters have been spaced several years apart, and several are still living.

My own brother is being placed in Hospice this week. He was also a life long smoker and is in the final stages of emphysema. My sister is on SSI disability. She abused drugs for many years and is currently using medicinal marijuana. I expect to hear of her passing at any time.

I fully expect to be around another 30 years, at least.

40

My dad used to tell me that there was a “shake-out” at around 50. He used to say if you survived the “shake-out” you were probably good for another 25 years.
BTW, he survived the “shake-out” but did not make it for 25 years.

There seem to be times when your friends all get married, all have kids, all have parents die, or they start dying off. There is a brief time out of High School and into College were a lot of people I knew died. Some from drugs, some from car accidents, some from bad illnesses.
In my high school class (of about 700), we have had about 50 die so far. I am almost 40 years since graduation.

I’m 57, graduated from high school 40 years ago. We’re now moving on in such a way that it’s not a big surprise.

I am on my reunion committee, we’ve lost about 25 that we know of, out of 375. about the same rate as @filmfann.

I worked at a stock exchange during the 80s and 90s. We’ve lost a lot of people from there, some to drugs, some to suicide (one yesterday) and a lot that dropped dead at an early age.

I’m 62 and they are dropping too frequently and it is very sad.

Between the ages of 12 and 16, I lost three aunts, four uncles, and my grandfather.

It was a rough five years.

On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

Not really. Not yet. I think everybody is waiting for me to make the first move. They’ll have to wait awhile. I’m not there yet.

Jeez it started when I was only about 4, my favorite aunt died. Since my mom came from a very large family and she was the baby, it was like a steady stream from there on. But if you mean contemporaries, they aren’t quite dropping like flies, but seems as if there has been a steady stream of them for quite a few years as well. It’s a little bit daunting to say the least!

In a space of 3 years I lost my mother (cardiac), stepfather (failure to thrive after the loss of my mom—hard to watch), big sister (cancer), three very close friends (cancer and a car accident), and I went through a divorce and had a heart attack. It didn’t help at all that I was working on a hospice unit during most of that time. Those were 3 tough years. It forced me to take a close look at how I would use the rest of my allotment of life.

Sorry to hear you are going through it, Mama Cakes. It can be really hard, but I can tell you from my experience that survival can bring wisdom and self examination will bring new life if you work it right. Eventually spring will come again and you will find a new crop around you.