Would you rather be the first or last of your family to die?

[Up2Late]

Poll question: Would you rather be the first or last of your family to die?

Sorry if this seems like an odd poll, but I've been working on figuring out and posting my family tree at Ancestry.com for the last few months, so I've thinking about this a lot lately.

About and how long my relatives lived and noticing what they did with all their money when they died. Most of them did much better that I'll ever do in this Sh*t BushWorld economy. And when I told my Dad (who's 74 this year) that several of our family members lived to over 95 years old, all I could think about was, Wow, 50 more years of struggling in what's left of America. WooHoo.

Anyway, would you like to die first, or out live your brothers and sisters and friends and, by doing so, watch them all die one by one while you struggle to get by without any retirement savings?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. There's no way I'd ever want to be first to die!

I just want to live a very long, and healthy life!

Yikes...what a question...:scared:

[MercutioATC]

2. You're assuming I'd be struggling....

...I won't be.

And, while it wouldn't be fun to watch people I cared about gradually die off, I'd rather live life for as long as it amuses me.

[Up2Late]

Well, that make one of us. I'm seriously starting to think about moving to Canada or...

...some other country where they take care of the less fortunate members of their society.

[MercutioATC]

5. Well, I'm retiring in 8 years and I'm going to Costa Rica.

My retirement will be more than adequate, but healthcare and general cost of living are much more reasonable there...and the U.S.has become a little to squirrely for my tastes.

[Enrique]

3. I hope we all die together

plane crash, suicide pact, whatever.

[MercutioATC]

6. I'll buy the black Nikes...

[Jed Dilligan]

4. Depends on the situation. Who is left, and how they might depend on me.

I would want to be first to die if my illness or disability were a drain on others, but if I was the only lifeline of care for someone I would probably want to see them off before I went.

[alphafemale]

7. I wish I remember where it was I read something recently about something like this.

I think it was probably a Harper's magazine article. It was a description of a village where people are grouped into distinctive peer groups by age, and it is a tradition that when one of the group dies there is a ritual where the remaining members run about calling their name and going to all the houses and meeting places as a group looking for them.

How achingly lonely and awful it must be to be the only one left, walking about calling out the name of the last remaining one before you...and that there will be NO ONE left to do this remembrance for you when you are gone.

[Up2Late]

9. I took a trip down to Columbus, Georgia a few months ago to see if I could find the grave...

...of one of my Great-grandfather's brothers who died as an infant. We did find the grave. The child had died at 7 month old, in the middle of the U.S. Civil War (August 1863) of pneumonia and none of us in my family had even known of his existence. It was only though doing my families genealogy that I found mention of his existence, but still nobody had any good records of him, not even the other family genealogist in the other related families, but we found the grave thanks to a un-related woman from another Columbus family with the same last name as ours.

I was so happy to receive her help, but I couldn't help thinking that she was the last of her families generation and had buried her parents, her husband and all her brothers and sisters.

Thankfully, she knew where the grave was, but all she knew about the grave we were looking for was that it wasn't someone from her family, so it had to be ours. I later confirmed it was by finding a copy of the Sexton's list at the local library, which was necessary for a few reasons.

One was that the inscription had been warn down due to several possible reasons, two was that it had been damaged due to vandalism which destroyed some of the inscription and worst of all was reason three. I didn't notice it when I took the pictures, but when I started trying to darken the inscription in PhotoShop, I noticed that the spelling of the last name was wrong. So not only did his family move away from where his grave was and forget about his existence, but his name was spelled wrong and was never fixed, so anyone in the future wouldn't know who he was either.

Anyway, at least I figured it all out and I posted a virtual marker for him at the on-line "Find-a-grave" website, so future genealogist will be able to find records of him now.

[alphafemale]

10. -

You may want to edit that August date. Look at it.

:hi:

[Up2Late]

12. Thanks for catching that! I do that all the time...

...but at Ancestry, a little "are you sure?" message pops up when I do it there.:pals:

[sammythecat]

8. If my death was going to cause great distress

to someone then I'd want them to go first. I'm surprised everybody doesn't feel that way. Hell, if I thought I had a very limited time to live I wouldn't even get a pet unless I had some trustworthy person lined up who could guarantee the pet would have a loving home.

You wouldn't want to hurt someone you love, and leaving them alone would be the ultimate hurt.

[Up2Late]

11. I know what you mean, not wanting to hurt my parents...

...and the worry that my cats might not get proper care after I'm gone is about all that keeps me going some days. Not that I think about that all that much, but reading all these obituaries, as of late, really gets me thinking about this stuff sometimes.

[csziggy]

13. I voted last because my parents have already lost one daughter

And I watched my father age ten years in the eighteen months it took for her to go. My second oldest sister has not been able to get rid of the anger and pain that long struggle loaded her with.

Then my youngest sister lost her husband and our family went through it all over again.

I'd rather be destitute than know my family would go through that again.

[orleans]

14. i don't know. n/t

[seabeyond]

15. last always

[ThomWV]

16. I am already the last

[DiverDave]

17. I don't want to attend my kids funerals

I'll die myself if that were to happen...

[Javaman]

18. Given that I am the youngest and my parents had me late in life

and they were also the youngest in their respective families, I suspect, I will sadly be outliving everyone in my family by a number of years. :(

On top of that my wife is 9 years older than me.

However, do I wish to die first or last? neither, I want nature to take its course.

I look to my mom, she outlived everyone in her immediate family. She's the last one alive. I feel so bad for her when she reminisces about her brothers and her sister. They are all gone many years now. Her nearest sibling was 10 years older than her.
she is no 84 and will most likely live well into her 90's if not longer.

However, she does have us kids. :)

I on the other hand (okay, self pitting time. LOL) have no kids and my wifes kids, although I love them very much, are adults and I wonder sometimes, what or how they will react to me when that day comes when their mom and real dad pass on.

okay okay, enough of the this melancholy crap! LOL I'm alive today and appreciate every moment of it!

[Hobarticus]

19. Maybe you need to rethink growing old and dying....

If all I did was think about growing old and dying in purely financial terms, I'd be pretty depressed about it, too.

[kentuck]

20. Interesting and deep question...

I have thought of this as my mother is very ill and her days are numbered...