I'm really lucky to where most of the people that I care a lot about are still alive, but I realize that that's a finite luxury. Sooner or later either I or one of those people are going to die, and it's going to be sad.
Much of my adult life was the same way. We used to talk about how great our family had it -- we went for decades without losing anyone close. We knew eventually our turn would come, but I treasured the time we did have.
But come it did, about 7 years ago. Since then I've lost two brothers, my dad, my grandparents, and my best friend. The trite "fuck cancer" statement comes to mind regularly. Another friend of mine has cancer, my mom has terminal cancer, my stepmother has cancer...
> I think I'm gonna call my mom.
Always a good plan, I highly recommend it. I think I will do the same. Treasure your loved ones, even when times are good it can change suddenly.
>>>Always a good plan, I highly recommend it. I think I will do the same. Treasure your loved ones, even when times are good it can change suddenly.
Absolutely. Now, I hope this does not come across as trite but I lost my mum to cancer in 1997. I was 27 at the time. It was hard, very hard as you'd expect. Time does heal but it takes a lot of time. I can still call my mum and she sometimes responds. Not literally - that's mad. I can still remember her values and guidance.
That won't be same for everyone because loss is personal and so is all experience. I've buried (in the loss sense, not mass murderer sense) quite a lot of relos and it is hard and part of life.
Whatever happens, you can always call your mum and she'll always be there in some way.
I was in the same boat. Never experienced a death in my family until my Grandmother died in '18, then my Brother dies a few months later, then my Grandfather in '19 and then an Aunt in 2019 and a uncle in 2020. Needless to say its been very rough and made me realize life is incredibly fragile and enjoy every minute of your time on this planet.
The same has happened to me. It's been almost every 1-2 years for the past 10 that I experience another great loss. Most recently was my mother. That one was/still is tough.
Sorry for your loss. Losing so many people in such a short time is devastating.
People talk about to going to Mars or other planets as a stupendous achievement. And it is. But I believe what would be the greatest human achievement would be fully conquering these leading causes of death: cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease..and finally the biggest cause of death and the final frontier: dying of old age. Even an extension of human lifespan by a several decades in good health could transform civilisation.
Yet, it seems that medical science has progressed only a few feet while industry/tech has sprinted miles. Life expectancy has plateaued and even declined across the world.
I've also lost several loved ones from cancer. Stopping the metastatic progression is key to survival, but wow do cancerous cells ever know how to survive. We need to win this.
My mom is being treated for resistant schizophrenia and she’s in a rehab. I get to talk with her only when the Counsellor is on duty.
When I visited my mom last month, she was complaining she doesn’t like 8 people ward coz of zero privacy and the need to share washrooms. She’s been brought up as a princess and was highly pampered, being everyone’s favorite, and finds it tough staying in such accommodations. She told me she wanted a single room to herself. I told her it’s not good staying alone, we will get you into a double occupancy room, so there’s someone in the room in case something untoward happens.
Today, she called me via the Counsellor today after a week, and the call got disconnected in about a few seconds coz of bad network.
I later called up the hospital but the Counsellor had left. However, I had her shifted from an 8 people ward to a 4 people ward today. It’s because the rehab administrator advised that we have 4 people ward as well if you wanna consider. I said ask mom and see what she like - 4 sharing or 2 sharing. The admin called up 10 min and said your mom was okay with 4 sharing, and we have moved her there.
Tomorrow, I will call her to ensure she’s comfortable in 4 sharing and if she does not like, next month I move her to 2 sharing.
It seems like (hopefully) there's the golden period a time after grandma and grandpa die where mostly nobody dies. Your parents are OK, your siblings, any friends, co-workers. It's all good until late middle age then people in your life start to disappear.
My dad died last year after a long illness on my birthday of all days. More than anything I find it amazing that a person can disappear. After they die there's this mandatory by law rush to bury them literally and figuratively. Delete all traces of them even their clothes and shoes are thrown away. Bit by bit things they touched disappear.
I was sitting beside my Dad died as he was in a bed in a palliative care room. Rick Steve travel show on Rome was playing and it was 8:40pm when Dad stopped breathing. To me in my mind that's where Dad is. A grave has no meaning to me maybe it will someday.
We all have to go through it but I think we assume it can't happen to use it's other people. If you're in that golden time right now be mindful of the gift you have now. Oh and take lots of pictures in this age of cellphone pics and videos - use it! And make sure it's not just Christmas and cakes in front of them for all the picture.
Please do that. I used to always backpack around, barely went to her or spent some time, always restless, always on the move, always angry (kinda still am), used to fight with her over little things. Though it seemed she always forgave me, or I just took it for granted. Joined work after college and I kept planning for the vacation I would take her to or the house I’ll help her build, and the gifts, for almost over a year but never actually did it or found time. And one day she was gone.
Don’t know more about your life, of course, but maybe check if your annoyances with your mum were really an unjustifiable, one-side thing. Looking back with my own mother, I came to notice that she was also very difficult to deal with and whilst it would have been nice if I could have been milder in my reactions at times, I try to diminish my guilt, by also seeing myself as a victim of her demeanor.
I'm in the same boat. I remind myself everyday, I called my parents at least once or twice a week for the last 20 years.
Every time I'm mad at my daughters in the morning before taking them to school, and I always have the thought what if I don't see them after that, then I forget about my anger, hug them tight, and would say I love them so much.
I can't imagine the pain losing a child. Every time reading again about the Sandy Hook, I tear up. One of the dads couldn't bear the emotional pain, he ended his own life.
Please be kind to others, we're all human and we happen to be on this same journey on earth.
Unfortunately, I have been involved with many, many people who have died, for my entire life.
It hasn't been as bad as some folks have had it, but, pretty much every year, since I've been eighteen, at least a couple of people in my close circle have passed away, for numerous reasons. In the early 1990s, it was bad. I won't get into why; and it's bad, again, now, for different reasons.
It's really rough, to be in his position. Even with all the wealth and resources at his disposal, he could not do much. I know others, who have had to deal with the same kind of thing.
When parents lose children; even when the children are dealing with long-term illness, it is devastating.
I’m sorry to hear that, it’s a sad story and it clearly hurts you to this day.
I just don’t agree with the sentiment that for everyone without our parents we’re just lost children. That would imply that we never grow up. In reality, adults can ideally self-guide themselves and they do that on a daily basis. And then most of us have children which needed to be guided by us…
You definitely should. My mom was in a bad car accident some years ago and barely survived. Since that time I call her twice a week without fail. At this point I feel much more at peace with whatever happens.
I've lost both of my parents already (I'm 46), but if I ever lost my son I couldn't take it. Reading about anyone losing their kids is painful since I became a parent myself.
This is one of those dark realizations I've had as I'm approaching middle age. Yes there is the aspect of me getting older, fatter, balder etc, but mostly that there is going to be an increasing likelihood that people I care about will start dying.
Mine died while I was stuck in jail because I was too poor to pay the release fee. Even with the intervention of the British government, the jail would not grant her final dying wish, to have a brief video call with me so she could say goodbye.
I made it to 29 without any deaths close to me ( great aunts died that I didn't really know) and my close family felt secure, maybe even somehow we were special somehow, but then my dad died at 59 of a heart attack (in a palace in Paris at a conference on temperature standards of all places). Was a shock. Now I'm 50, most of the older generation of my family are dead. I think I have handled death quite well so far, but I know others who still struggle decades later. However, I'm really not sure how well I'd handle one of my kids dying.
My biggest fear in life. As I get older I worry more about the health of the people around me than my own health. I cannot see my life without them and I have no idea how I would cope.
Please do, I have lost many relatives due to sudden death cases.
Cherish what you have around and live each day as if it was the last and more important, never reschedule meetings with close ones if you can avoid it.
The usual typical words, that so often feel like empty words, however time proves us how much wisdom they actually have in them.
I've lost my father some years ago. It was the saddest thing in my life. But it also changed my life, because I've never seen the world and what I really want so clearly.
> Satya, who took over the role of CEO in 2014, had been working on designing products to better serve users with disabilities. He said he had been using lessons he learned while raising and supporting Zain.
Within the video games space, Microsoft and Sony have had an intriguing "arms race" related to accessibility across their platform. I can only assume Zain's condition was a motivating factor for Nadella.
I worked at Microsoft as a vendor for more than a decade working with physical infrastructure and services Microsoft employees used. I can say that there was a complete sea-change regarding accessibility shortly after Satya took over as CEO. Prior to that accessibility drove me absolutely nuts. Not because I didn't think it was necessary or important, but because all of the accessibility initiatives seemed like little more than lip service. You made some arbitrary changes with no thought whatsoever to actual usability, updated your Power Point presentation to say "Accessibility" a few times, and you were done. After he took over everything changed and people actually spent time figuring out how to make human interfaces that could actually work for all employees with usability in mind. It was no longer simply a box to tick, but was actually more of an opportunity to innovate.
Very sad to hear about Zain's death, but I can say that with his life he absolutely made a meaningful, positive change for a lot of people.
An emperor commissioned a work from the greatest calligrapher in the nation. "Make me something auspicious!" was the brief. The calligrapher thought for a moment, then wrote on a banner:
Parents die. Emperor dies. Children die.
The emperor was outraged. "How is this auspicious? It speaks only of death!" The calligrapher was serene. "Emperor, there is nothing more auspicious than for your deaths to occur in the natural order. Would you have wanted to die before your parents? Would you want your children to die before you?
The lack of word suggests the opposite, that it was extremely common. Indeed, historically, nearly everyone would have lost a young child, and many people would have lost an older child.
It wasn't long ago that children commonly weren't named until they survived two years.
Bureaucratic dehumanization is responsible for reinforcing traumas that cultures had already built ways of dealing with. My grandparents' generation reused the names of their children who didn't survive, but today, few couples would consider that with any name they were forced to write on both a birth and death certificate.
I think, unfortunately, it was so common as to not be notable. People had way more kids, and there was much more infant mortality. Still tragic of course.
There's some good poetic value in it, but I don't know if it's actually true. It has more to do with the effect it has for someone's "normal" life cycle, which is why orphan is only applied to children and not adults. And as the sibling comment mentions, it was pretty common in a family of ~5-10 to have at least one child die.
For severely disabled children most parents hope to outlive their kids because they know that nobody will give them a parent's love when they are gone, even with Satya Nadella-level money. There have been some (tragic? bittersweet? I don't know) cases where an aging parent of a disabled child kills the child and then kills themselves to ensure that their kid doesn't get institutionalized after they're gone.
Some people turn to religion, others try to find a purpose for it (cause or charity, see Sandy Hook Promise[1]), and sometimes others don't find a way to go on.
Deepest condolences to the Nadella family. Their love for their son and his memory are a blessing.
If you have been exposed to software accessibility, you know how challenging technology can be for people with even minor disabilities. Zain's father's love and dedication has had a profound impact improving the lives of many others.
Deepest condolences for the Nadellas in this time of grief.
Reading Satya's book it was apparent how much he loved his son. I hope the trauma of losing him doesn't mean his tenure at MS is over. He has done great things for disabled people all around the world through improving accessibility on Xbox and Windows. Something as simple as being able to play games because of the initiatives he put in place make the world of difference.
Having children is such a crap shoot. Cerebral palsy is one of those conditions where you don't seem to get any warning that it's going to happen and if it's severe enough, your life is now round-the-clock care for someone who will die incredibly young (but still take years, usually), never be able to live independently and arguably has no quality-of-life at all.
And that becomes your life.
At least the Nadyellas are fortunate enough such that they have the means for this to have not been a totally consuming. This is of course a tragedy still. This is a burden they've had for years. My condolences. Truly.
It's so tragic that some people can just be born with horrible disabilities where they or their carers can never again have a normal life.
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I think I'm gonna call my mom.
But come it did, about 7 years ago. Since then I've lost two brothers, my dad, my grandparents, and my best friend. The trite "fuck cancer" statement comes to mind regularly. Another friend of mine has cancer, my mom has terminal cancer, my stepmother has cancer...
> I think I'm gonna call my mom.
Always a good plan, I highly recommend it. I think I will do the same. Treasure your loved ones, even when times are good it can change suddenly.
>>>Always a good plan, I highly recommend it. I think I will do the same. Treasure your loved ones, even when times are good it can change suddenly.
Absolutely. Now, I hope this does not come across as trite but I lost my mum to cancer in 1997. I was 27 at the time. It was hard, very hard as you'd expect. Time does heal but it takes a lot of time. I can still call my mum and she sometimes responds. Not literally - that's mad. I can still remember her values and guidance.
That won't be same for everyone because loss is personal and so is all experience. I've buried (in the loss sense, not mass murderer sense) quite a lot of relos and it is hard and part of life.
Whatever happens, you can always call your mum and she'll always be there in some way.
People talk about to going to Mars or other planets as a stupendous achievement. And it is. But I believe what would be the greatest human achievement would be fully conquering these leading causes of death: cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease..and finally the biggest cause of death and the final frontier: dying of old age. Even an extension of human lifespan by a several decades in good health could transform civilisation.
Yet, it seems that medical science has progressed only a few feet while industry/tech has sprinted miles. Life expectancy has plateaued and even declined across the world.
When I visited my mom last month, she was complaining she doesn’t like 8 people ward coz of zero privacy and the need to share washrooms. She’s been brought up as a princess and was highly pampered, being everyone’s favorite, and finds it tough staying in such accommodations. She told me she wanted a single room to herself. I told her it’s not good staying alone, we will get you into a double occupancy room, so there’s someone in the room in case something untoward happens.
Today, she called me via the Counsellor today after a week, and the call got disconnected in about a few seconds coz of bad network.
I later called up the hospital but the Counsellor had left. However, I had her shifted from an 8 people ward to a 4 people ward today. It’s because the rehab administrator advised that we have 4 people ward as well if you wanna consider. I said ask mom and see what she like - 4 sharing or 2 sharing. The admin called up 10 min and said your mom was okay with 4 sharing, and we have moved her there.
Tomorrow, I will call her to ensure she’s comfortable in 4 sharing and if she does not like, next month I move her to 2 sharing.
Just a random post reading your comment.
My dad died last year after a long illness on my birthday of all days. More than anything I find it amazing that a person can disappear. After they die there's this mandatory by law rush to bury them literally and figuratively. Delete all traces of them even their clothes and shoes are thrown away. Bit by bit things they touched disappear.
I was sitting beside my Dad died as he was in a bed in a palliative care room. Rick Steve travel show on Rome was playing and it was 8:40pm when Dad stopped breathing. To me in my mind that's where Dad is. A grave has no meaning to me maybe it will someday.
We all have to go through it but I think we assume it can't happen to use it's other people. If you're in that golden time right now be mindful of the gift you have now. Oh and take lots of pictures in this age of cellphone pics and videos - use it! And make sure it's not just Christmas and cakes in front of them for all the picture.
Please do that. I used to always backpack around, barely went to her or spent some time, always restless, always on the move, always angry (kinda still am), used to fight with her over little things. Though it seemed she always forgave me, or I just took it for granted. Joined work after college and I kept planning for the vacation I would take her to or the house I’ll help her build, and the gifts, for almost over a year but never actually did it or found time. And one day she was gone.
Every time I'm mad at my daughters in the morning before taking them to school, and I always have the thought what if I don't see them after that, then I forget about my anger, hug them tight, and would say I love them so much.
I can't imagine the pain losing a child. Every time reading again about the Sandy Hook, I tear up. One of the dads couldn't bear the emotional pain, he ended his own life.
Please be kind to others, we're all human and we happen to be on this same journey on earth.
It hasn't been as bad as some folks have had it, but, pretty much every year, since I've been eighteen, at least a couple of people in my close circle have passed away, for numerous reasons. In the early 1990s, it was bad. I won't get into why; and it's bad, again, now, for different reasons.
It's really rough, to be in his position. Even with all the wealth and resources at his disposal, he could not do much. I know others, who have had to deal with the same kind of thing.
When parents lose children; even when the children are dealing with long-term illness, it is devastating.
You really should, like right now. not in a few hours, not tomorrow, right now.
I lost my mom years ago to cancer, I'm now in my mid 30s and would give up _everything_ I have to spend another minute with her.
Without our mom and dad, we are just lost children.
I just don’t agree with the sentiment that for everyone without our parents we’re just lost children. That would imply that we never grow up. In reality, adults can ideally self-guide themselves and they do that on a daily basis. And then most of us have children which needed to be guided by us…
I think I'll go call my parents too...
Mine died while I was stuck in jail because I was too poor to pay the release fee. Even with the intervention of the British government, the jail would not grant her final dying wish, to have a brief video call with me so she could say goodbye.
So yes, absolutely call your mom. You never know when it will be the last time you hear her voice.
Hi, how's your day, what's for your dinner, are you ok for milk?
Mom is where we come from
Cherish what you have around and live each day as if it was the last and more important, never reschedule meetings with close ones if you can avoid it.
The usual typical words, that so often feel like empty words, however time proves us how much wisdom they actually have in them.
Within the video games space, Microsoft and Sony have had an intriguing "arms race" related to accessibility across their platform. I can only assume Zain's condition was a motivating factor for Nadella.
Very sad to hear about Zain's death, but I can say that with his life he absolutely made a meaningful, positive change for a lot of people.
An emperor commissioned a work from the greatest calligrapher in the nation. "Make me something auspicious!" was the brief. The calligrapher thought for a moment, then wrote on a banner:
Parents die. Emperor dies. Children die.
The emperor was outraged. "How is this auspicious? It speaks only of death!" The calligrapher was serene. "Emperor, there is nothing more auspicious than for your deaths to occur in the natural order. Would you have wanted to die before your parents? Would you want your children to die before you?
Loosely translated to: May God give deaths in (natural) order...
I think about this every now and then, and thank god for all i have.
https://dying.lovetoknow.com/ideas-advice-coping-grief/vilom...
Bureaucratic dehumanization is responsible for reinforcing traumas that cultures had already built ways of dealing with. My grandparents' generation reused the names of their children who didn't survive, but today, few couples would consider that with any name they were forced to write on both a birth and death certificate.
There's some good poetic value in it, but I don't know if it's actually true. It has more to do with the effect it has for someone's "normal" life cycle, which is why orphan is only applied to children and not adults. And as the sibling comment mentions, it was pretty common in a family of ~5-10 to have at least one child die.
Nice way to flip "my greatest fear"
How do you even go on after that?
She was a kind old lady who used to speak with my young daughter every morning.
As you can imagine, it was a deeply traumatic experience for her.
[1] https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/who-we-are/about-us/
Best wishes to them and their family. :(
If you have been exposed to software accessibility, you know how challenging technology can be for people with even minor disabilities. Zain's father's love and dedication has had a profound impact improving the lives of many others.
Deepest condolences for the Nadellas in this time of grief.
Reading Satya's book it was apparent how much he loved his son. I hope the trauma of losing him doesn't mean his tenure at MS is over. He has done great things for disabled people all around the world through improving accessibility on Xbox and Windows. Something as simple as being able to play games because of the initiatives he put in place make the world of difference.
It would not surprise me in the least if Nadella steps down as CEO sooner rather than later. The trauma is that large.
And that becomes your life.
At least the Nadyellas are fortunate enough such that they have the means for this to have not been a totally consuming. This is of course a tragedy still. This is a burden they've had for years. My condolences. Truly.
It's so tragic that some people can just be born with horrible disabilities where they or their carers can never again have a normal life.