Well, I'm pretty sure I just saw someone die.Follow

She's a mother.

Man, we have sure had some grim threads of late.

Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,
Everything that's wonderful is what I feel when we're together,
Brighter than a lucky penny,
When you're near the rain cloud disappears, dear,
And I feel so fine just to know that you are mine.

My life is sunshine, lollipops and rainbows,
That's how this refrain goes, so come on, join in everybody!

You'd know. ;-)

I find that after my near-death experience the passing of others is much easier to deal with. About twelve years ago I ate an aspirin one morning and found out I am allergic via the anaphylactic shock. I swolled up and turned red and itchy, all the while sneezing and tasting something metallic. Then I started having the seizures and going in and out of conciousness. My father gave me tearful mouth-to-mouth in my front yard, sicko. Like any teen-ager wants to taste second-hand tobacco and coffee. It was while I was prone in the front yard that I had the classic near-death experience.

I remember looking up at the bricks adorning the front of my childhood home, and they individually started to disappear, replaced by beams of ghostly white light. It was mesmerizing, and everything around me went from hyper-panic to pure serenity. Soon my entire field of vision was filled with the milky whiteness of a dying brain, and then the paramedics showed up and did the adrenaline shot thing and I was snapped back to reality.

I cliff-noted that last part, so as to not suffer you with my experience, but the point is that even a slightly drawn out death, taking place over about half-an-hour, gets darn right pleasant right at the end.

I agree with Gbaji, in that dementia is a terrible way to die. My grandmother had early on-set Alzheimer's in her fifties and it took her twelve years to die. She was constantly terrified and went from being one of the most caring women, always involved in bettering strangers' condition, to being fanatically paranoid and just different. Horrible, horrible death.

This early on-set for Grandma's illness was brought on by the loss of her daughter, my aunt, who died at thirty-two from a brain tumor. Another bad way to die is any terminal disease, in my opinion. Cindy was the first person I ever saw die up close, and I was twelve, it was before my own brush with death. It was pretty devistating, but not real impressive to look at. She just sort of relaxed. If she had been a stranger I think there would have been little impact on my young mind.

I saw a high school friend die after an accident. We were camping and the e-brake on his Scout failed and the thing rolled out of control toward his girl. He was a good guy, and pushed her out of the way, only to be crushed between the Scout and a tree. He was dead by the time we got the Scout off of him, bleeding from the mouth and staring into space. By this time, I had already come to know how peaceful death is once you reach that last part, so I wasn't too damaged by anything but the visceral sensation of seeing a childhood friend dead.

Wheee! Looks like I've got a bit to say on the whole witness to death subject. Thanks for enduring my catharsis!

Edited, Mon Apr 17 11:28:28 2006 by Barkingturtle

Sorry to hear they all lived Kao, maybe next time.

well, on a lighter note, I just saw somebody burst out in tears after I informed them that their hard drive was fried and that ALL of the work that they DID NOT put in their redirected Documents folder was lost... Apparently this person was not doing waht they supposed to be doing and saved all of her work on her desktop. If they were smart they would have kep their work in their My Documents folder which redirects to the file server so that all work is backed up.
I have no sympathy.

In my line of work I see alot of accidents, dismemberments, gorings, disembowelments, crushings, shootings, stabbings, bludgeonings, attempted suicides, attempted murders, and every other kind of maiming of the human body you can think of. But what always strikes me is how resilient the body is. For every one person that is killed, I see dozens who survive just fine, albeit with lowered capabilites.

We are like cockroaches, just with less emotional capacity.

Totem

I think I'm going to invest into adult diapers and EZ-Lift chairs in a few years. I see a bright future for those industries.

Bah, I never get kissed by the hot chicks when I fix their computers!

I've only seen two peaceful deaths, the rest were messy violent deaths.I got alot respect for you Evac chops Totem.

I'm an ex firefighter. I've seen many horrible deaths. I've literally held someones gray matter in my hands. But weather you are that up close, or seeing in from a distance (like you did..although the distance probably wasnt far enough to you) it still hurts.

You'll be in my prayers (as well as those more intamately involved)