Delightfully, I walked right into it. 
I have a friend whose goal is to (in his 80’s) be shot by a 20-something jealous husband, while in the act with the 20-something wife . He heard about a similar story in real life and decided that’s exactly how he wanted to go.
The die-young way of living is sort of the path I’m on, too. I eat decently but exercise too much, and consume way to much caffiene. And there’s enough family history of diseases to ensure that I’m going to go blind, get diabetes, have a stroke, get breast cancer, and generally suffer by the time I’m “old”.
That said, my maternal grandmother is 84 years old. She’s smoked heavily, constantly, for about 60 of those years. She has emphezyma, has had breast cancer requiring intense chemotherapy and a complete masectomy, and has had open heart surgery. She walks four blocks to the pool and goes swimming nearly every day, spends hours working in her garden, cooks like nothing else, knits wonderfully, is nearly psychic when doing crossword puzzles, and can keep up with her seven-year-old grandson easily. Once, when my mother and I were visiting, she was getting something off a top shelf and fell off the top step of the three-step stool she was on. My mom and I freaked out; my grandmother got up, told us not to worry, got what she needed, and spent the next two hours gardening.
If I do (somehow) live to be that old, I want to be my grandma.
Oh, hell yes.
Working as a home health nurse has certainly given me a view of the other side of getting old. It’s not pretty, folks. Unless you start saving lots of money, you’ll most likely be living very frugally and having to decide which bills to pay each month. Assisted living is not an option for me. I will sell everything first and go to Amsterdam or Oregon or someplace exotic, and that’s my plan. Of course, seeing both my parents suffer with endless illness and early death has made me quite morbid as well. Talk to Mr. Beckwall, if you want a happy days view of life. God bless him and his healthy Scandinavian family, they are all doing great and living large. But in my mind that’s really the exception to the rule.
I have an e-mail friend who’s a FDNY based at the “Harlem Hilton” on West 143rd.
Boy, do I hear some stories from him…
Lets see.
I am 26 and have no surviving grandparents.
My paternal grandfather died young of I know not what, my paternal grandmother died of cancer at around 75 years of age. My maternal grandfather suffered from numerous strokes until he finally passed away at 91 years of age (how fun it must have been for him, to not be able to use his body at all but still posses use of his mind), my maternal grandmother suffered from dementia and withered until she finally passed away at 90.
My father passed away in August of last year due to emphezyma at 62 years of age. I actually suspect that my stepmother slipped him some extra morphine to help him along, at his request.
So. Once I’ve gotten to a good age I’m going to find myself a nice deep snowdrift. It’s either that or the crazy old cat lady plan.
I’m going to run against the crowd on this one. I want people saying, “Little Nemo is still alive? What is he - like a hundred and eight years old now?”
There’ll be plenty of time to be dead when I’m dead.
I want to be my husband’s grandmother when I grew old.
She’s eighty-six and happily living in sin with her boyfriend.
I’m 24. There are currently no health indications of the way I will possibly go, but I seem to take after my dad in having congenitally low/normal bloodpressure (he’s in his late fifties and still 120/80; I’m 110/63). All the females in his family lived into their 90s and some are centenarians. I don’t know what their quality of life is like, though.
My paternal grandma lived to 90 and died in her sleep. She wasn’t senile at all.
My paternal grandad suffered from emphysema, a horrible condition, because he worked in a mill (they didn’t have OHS standards in the 1970s), and died in his 70s.
My maternal grandma died in her early 60s from heart disease. And my mother’s dad died in his 30s from TB. So I’m hoping that I won’t take after him. 
Let me put it this way: either a quick heart attack before I get really decrepit; or like George Burns, who lived til over 100 and never seemed to age once he turned 70.
My dad is 91 and married a gal one year older (to the day) than I am back in June.
Eve attitude is a big part of the game. For instance, my dad is still convinced he will out-live me. I suspect you are joking, if not you are headed down a dangerous road, IMHO. Remember Satchel Page said “Don’t look back, someone might be catching up with you.” 
[sup]I have no idea what that means, but it seems to apply.[/sup]
I’m 21, and the mere thought of seventy more years on this planet depresses me enough.
I think if I ever (well, when, I suppose is more likely) start to really slip off, health wise, I’m going to take a long hike into some snowy mountains, and not come back.
Twenty years ago my grandmother was being written up in the paper as being this little white haired old lady who would beat you to the top of the mountain. Ten years ago she was still flying south for the winter and renting a car when she got there and the family was cringing but mostly had faith she’d be ok.
Then came health crisis number 1, then she got better-- but people would look at you over her head when she described her exploits as if to say “does she know what she is talking about or is she delusional”.
Now she is declining in health and has recently been placed in assisted living. It was really sad to hear how my mother and the other wives directed the sons to take their mother to lunch- and be sure to stay gone at least an hour and a half- so that the wives can search the assisted living suite for keys to the car or exchange clothes in the closet.
Somedays I could wish that ten years ago with the health and money to afford it, she’d have walked off the edge of a cliff in a foreign country. We’d have been devasted- and it might have been a pain to make arrangements to retrieve the body, etc. But we’d have grieved and gotten on with our lives. (Just like we did when her husband had a sudden heart attack twenty or more years ago).
As it is, she’s in assisted living, hates it, swears at Number One Son frequently. Accepts that she can’t go home again- because her sons would worry and this is more convenient for them. She uses “I climbed Mt. Killamonjaro(sp?)” as her rallying cry and the rest of us all think- yes, but that was almost twenty years ago, and has no bearing on your present capabilities. The family hesitated to put her into assisted living for fear that she would decide she no longer had anything to live for, but she appears to have lost interest in life anyway. I am not eager for her to die, but there is a part of me that would be relieved if the phone call came soon to inform me that she had died.
There was a time (after health crisis number 1) when people worried that she would kill herself. Now she is past the point of being able to make that decision. It isn’t like I can look back and find a time when I would have wanted her to die, but she was one of those people I couldn’t imagine getting old, and yet she has done so.
(Probably won’t mean much to non-Brits, though)
Hell, we’re saying that already.
I have absolutely no desire to die - ever. I like to eat, drink, smoke, read, run, fuck, and, well…live, way too much to want it to end. I don’t care if I’m a babbling old coot in a diaper - I want to live.
Damn, that sounds like Susan Heyward, doesn’t it (except the “old coot” part).
Impudent young whippersnapper! Back in my day we had a thing called respect! Why I ought … to … zzzzzzz
It’s “something,” not “someone.” The whole correct quote is “Don’t look back–something might be gaining on you.” Hope that makes more sense…
My voting precinct this past Presidential election was at an assisted-living facility near my home. The line to vote snaked past the main room, where about two dozen elderly folks sat along the walls. A young woman sat at a piano, belting out a way-too-cheerful rendition of “Meet Me Under the Apple Tree.” Save for one elderly gentleman tapping at his knee, the rest of the folks in the room were as expressionless as they were motionless.
I suddenly realized that I don’t want to get to that point. Yahtzee hour and cards sounded like fun, but I don’t want to be sitting in a room like that fifty years from now while some young whippersnapper tries to dazzle me with his rendition of “Baby Got Back.”
How ironic that the name, “Eve” means “the mother of all living.” :smack:
Just one note to think about… what happens after you die? Every post on this board implies the belief that everything will be fine. Who says so? Who knows so? Wouldn’t it be just plain common sense to try to find out rather than to ignorantly enter into the afterlife? The Catholic church once taught that if you commit suicide you go to hell.
Think about this: is there such a thing as justice? Don’t we all have a sense of it? If someone killed your sister (other than you and assuming she was young and full of life), would you not seek justice? Why? Is there not a sense of justice within you? It rises up when injustice is seen.
If you are still with me, think about God. If He is real, is He good? We are taught that He is Holy. Fact is, if there is holiness, then there is holy justice. If you went to court over your sister’s death, and the judge there said to the murderer, “It’s okay, you look like a nice person and I don’t think you will do that again - you can go free with no penalty” would you be okay with that? Wouldn’t you say, “That judge is unjust!!” You might even tell him, “You are an evil judge!!” For in fact he would be, because of his injustice.
So what about God. He is both a holy and just judge. Therefore, nobody gets away with anything unjust. But a judge only judges based on the law. He doesn’t make the laws, he uses them to administer justice. God will administer perfect justice base on His law, the 10 commandments. In His case, he did make the laws because, well, because He is God. Have you broken them? Though shalt not commit adultery. Though shalt not steal. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Those are a few. Think about these and what awaits you if you kill yourself or someone else.
This post may at least save a life. At best, lead someone to salvation through Jesus Christ.
Cheers! 
Criminy. Er, sorry, Jesus Fuckin’ Christ! Ah, yes, much better.