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A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

meyerweb.com

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Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#121

Post by ignoramous »

UberFly wrote: post #96
vishnugupta wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Theoden king expresses his grief to Gandalf, “one should not have to bury their children”. I was in college then, unmarried and didn’t appreciate the meaning of it or could appreciate his grief. Now that I have kids of my own I can’t get myself to read the posts such as OPs. And if I end up reading it their grief stays when me for a long time. Exactly what they have written, a…

Great post here, and yea, things hit so much harder after kids. I remember seeing a photo of a man in India carrying his daughter killed by the tsunami. My daughter was about the same age and I cried for an hour in front of my computer.

> Great post here, and yea, things hit so much harder after kids ... remember seeing a photo of a man in India carrying his daughter killed by the tsunami

Also from India, a bereaved mother is barely able to speak to the loss of her 2 children, right after having spoke about 6 other deaths in her family: https://youtu.be/XLl2qAprU8w?t=312

I've seen that clip before, but after having kids, it hits like a truck. That said, children or not, there's no shortage of people who mock or deny or won't sympathise with "others" (outgroup).

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#122

Post by arrowsmith »

djeastm wrote: post #115
llm_trw wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just remember than not a century ago the average family would bury half their kids.

I remember reading that the upper classes didn't even name their children until they were a few years old and had gotten past the crucial disease stage.

Why only the upper classes?

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#123

Post by aryonoco »

CobaltFire wrote: post #70
canucker2016 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eric Meyer's blog posts about his daughter Rebecca - see https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/category/personal/rebecca...

I made the mistake of reading this. My son is in remission from cancer (Leukemia, in chemo from 3 to 6 years old, now 7). It's going to be a rough night.

Stay strong my friend. The world is more beautiful with your son here, and I hope it stays beautiful for a very long time.

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#124

Post by nullc »

Syonyk wrote: post #78
hn666 wrote: post #3

This is one of those moments where, thanks to the internet, you catch a glimpse of another persons world. It gives some perspective.

And this is why I hate AI so strongly (I... debated several less charitable wordings of this opening). I read, because I want to know what people think. What people thought, decades, centuries ago. Writing, and reading, are about the only mechanism we know to really get inside someone else's brain. To see how, and what, they think, in what they've chosen to communicate. I used to write more for a technical audience -…

but AI is telling you what 'people' think-- not a person-- but a blended up mismash of people, like the move Dark City, then strapped into a torture chair to diminish wrongthought. But it's people. or peopleish. It was made by people at least. sorta.

Besides, after being filtered through perception and narration who is to say any story you hear from another person is real?

Shouldn't it be more a question of what it does for you? And if some amorphous nonphysical branding of Realness(tm) and Authenticity(tm) is what you value most, then ultimately someone is marketing to that. And paradoxically it means that the most "real" stuff won't tend to be real at all.

So I think ultimately the only thing real is going to be the stuff you experienced yourself or comes from acquaintances you know well enough to know when they're not being earnest. I hope won't be so bad, after all it was the condition of all humanity until not so many years ago.

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#125

Post by luluthefirst »

darkwater wrote: post #109
red_admiral wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And that was just a dog. I forget which book I read this in, but the author in their autobiography described their "real man" father as someone who they'd only seen cry three times in his life. When his wife died, he was all stoic about it and didn't show any upset in public. But when his favorite dog died, he broke down crying. Many people who don't understand how upset one can get over a dog, have never had one.…

I will be downvoted but that ("real man", no crying for the wife passing away...) tells more about subtle "machismo" and patriarchy that about how much people can care about dogs.

Grief is complex and deeply personal, and is not about fitting someone else's expectations... Losing a dog hits different because their presence is so genuine and uncomplicated. They provide unconditional comfort. That connection is usually way less complicated than the ones with have with people.

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#126

Post by noisy_boy »

When I read these stories, I occasionally try to imagine how it would feel for any of my children to be not there. I can never get too far, just the beginnings themselves are too powerful for me. It is like cracking open the doors to a horrible world and simply peeking through the tiny gap is enough pain. Unimaginable how bad it is for those for whom it is a reality of every waking moment for the rest of their lives.

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#127

Post by darkwater »

luluthefirst wrote: post #125
darkwater wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will be downvoted but that ("real man", no crying for the wife passing away...) tells more about subtle "machismo" and patriarchy that about how much people can care about dogs.

Grief is complex and deeply personal, and is not about fitting someone else's expectations... Losing a dog hits different because their presence is so genuine and uncomplicated. They provide unconditional comfort. That connection is usually way less complicated than the ones with have with people.

Let's add conformity to (wrong? IMO totally) social/religious rules like "you cannot divorce". Because if your spouse passes away, either young or when it was their time so to speak, and you aren't genuinely sad, well, why were you two still together? If you spent a happy life together with someone, you should be sad even if they passed away serenely, because hey, it was the person with whom you shared and lived almost everything. If instead you were still together but actually secretly hating each other, or just because "it was always like that", well, the marriage should have not lasted til that point. If it did, it was most probably due to social rules to follow no matter what and/or patriarchy. And if it was a young person, well, even more! A young loss should generate even more grief. And the "real man" part...well, I think it explains itself.

I understand this can come off as simplifying too much but I believe it boils down to those reasons in the vast majority of cases. So, there can be exceptions of course but they are a minority.

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#128

Post by canucker2016 »

knome wrote: post #45
canucker2016 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eric Meyer's blog post about why it should be called 'rebeccapurple' - see https://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2014/06/19/rebeccapurple/

>For almost twelve hours, she was six This is an incredibly poetic, heartbreaking statement.

a late tl;dr (more background for the above quote):

     "...A couple of weeks before she died, Rebecca informed us that she was about to be a big girl of six years old, and Becca was a baby name.  Once she turned six, she wanted everyone (not just me) to call her Rebecca, not Becca."

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#129

Post by metaltyphoon »

noisy_boy wrote: post #126

When I read these stories, I occasionally try to imagine how it would feel for any of my children to be not there. I can never get too far, just the beginnings themselves are too powerful for me. It is like cracking open the doors to a horrible world and simply peeking through the tiny gap is enough pain. Unimaginable how bad it is for those for whom it is a reality of every waking moment for the rest of their lives.

I have the same feelings. When I start to wonder, I instantly have teary eyes and have to stop myself from thinking about it. I just can’t. It must be hell.

Re: A decade later, a decade lost (2024)

#130

Post by egeozcan »

vishnugupta wrote: post #73
lemonberry wrote: post #5

I was a young (19/20) bartender in the mid to late 90s. One afternoon I worked a private event. There was a couple there that had been staring at me. Eventually they came over and apologized. They said I looked like their son and that he'd be about my age that time. I forget how old he was when he passed. But I'll never forget the pain their faces. Some good friends lost their son at 10 months old. He'd be 11 this ye…

In The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Theoden king expresses his grief to Gandalf, “one should not have to bury their children”. I was in college then, unmarried and didn’t appreciate the meaning of it or could appreciate his grief. Now that I have kids of my own I can’t get myself to read the posts such as OPs. And if I end up reading it their grief stays when me for a long time. Exactly what they have written, a…

Three months after my son was born, I made the mistake of following the news about the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes[0], especially in the Hatay region. I thought I was tough, as I had lived through the chaos and death of a disaster before, in 1999[1]. This time, I was far away in Germany, so not actually where it happened. But no.

Back then, as a teenager, I could somehow handle seeing people take their last breath on a sidewalk (don't get me wrong: It was absolutely horrible, but I could keep functioning, eat, sleep, even help people carry first aid kits). I remember being outside our building and asking my father where all those buildings went, in some of which my friends lived. He had chosen not to lie to me, and I still didn't break.

But one photo from 2023, a child's grave with a toy helicopter on top, his name written on the toy, the same name as my son, completely broke me. Two years later, I still haven't recovered from that single image.

And yet, today, we were in the emergency room because my son was struggling to breathe. I was calm and functioning. If I had seen something like this on the news or in a movie, I wouldn't have been able to keep watching.

It's strange how the mind works.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Turkey%E2%80%93Syria_eart...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_%C4%B0zmit_earthquake

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