Comment by no1youknowz | Hacker News Reader

Comment by no1youknowz | Hacker News Reader

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I don't understand it either. Why is it frightening?

I also didn't quite understand the family comment either. Whose family are you talking about?

When you are born, you have your mom (and possibly Dad) around you. But as you grow older, Mom and Dad will pass away and you'll thus be alone. Unless you have kids, you'll die alone.

Even if you do have kids, life happens. I know plenty of people who don't talk to their kids or they hate their mom or dad and there is no relation. Thus some people have died alone.

I think some people have this fantasy, that they are on their death bed and there is 3 generations weeping around them.

Sorry, but is this even true any more? Quite honestly for me. I'm quite happy to leave as unnoticed.

Oh and another thing. Friends. Unless you make seriously good friends and not those on facebook or acquaintances. They may be around you a long time. But I have rarely met someone in their 50s/60s that still knows their childhood friends.

So strike that one off the list. I think a life well-meant is what you did with it. Rather than who is in it.

I think some people have this fantasy, that they are on their death bed and there is 3 generations weeping around them. Sorry, but is this even true any more?

Well, at least here in my Southern European country, it sure is. While there are many more elderly people dying alone than a couple of decades ago, I'd say most people I know still keep in close contact with their parents and grandparents, and they spend their last days (usually in the hospital) with them.

In fact, that's one thing I always found disconcerting in online conversations with US Americans - the willingness to just move hundreds of miles from their parents and grandparents. I've never considered myself a family-oriented person -I've always disliked family reunions and the "you have to go visit your great-uncle"- but the idea of leaving now, when my grandmothers probably just have a few more years to live, just sounds so ungrateful and selfish :|

True where I live as well (Canadian city of ~150,000). I would say the majority of my friends were at their grandparents death bed and would assume the same for their grandchildren.

In fact, that's one thing I always found disconcerting in online conversations with US Americans - the willingness to just move hundreds of miles from their parents and grandparents.

In practice, this doesn't seem to occur often: http://phys.org/news/2010-05-americans-surprisingly-mothers....

No kidding. I'm willing to die alone, but that's because of a legion of horrible experiences. Without those I would be glad to be with people in are about and who care about me in turn.

I've regretted not being able to be there for the passing of one of my grandparents, and in general the entire family has and will be there at their last moments if they can make it. Not to mention doing what we can to ensure that they are taken care of and happy.

America's a pretty big country. You can drive the 400 miles from where my grandmother lives to where my parents live and the largest city during that drive has a population of fewer than 4,000 people.

>I think some people have this fantasy, that they are on their death bed and there is 3 generations weeping around them.

I think you hit it spot on with this. My dad's father died after parking his car in his garage. My mom's father died in his sleep. His wife (my mom's mom) died in an elderly care home in the middle of the day a year later. Between both sets of grandparents, there were 30 grandchildren. None of us had seen them in a few weeks at the times of their deaths. It's not like we weren't close, they all just sort of died unexpectedly. None of them were sick or anything.

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