Getting tired of losing close friends

[opos]

I've know for some time that as we hit our 80's we will probably lose friends...I, like many do not have a large group of really close friends...in fact only a few...lots of acquaintences and "friends" but only a few men I'd really trust with my life or to respond if I were in a jam.

Lost one of them a short while ago..man I'd known for many years as a sober friend in AA...he got sober in 1956 so that made him a real "rarity" of a man with over 60 years of complete sobriety when he passed.

Now I find my long time fishing buddy is on the "short list" and will leave us within the next couple of months. Seems the "cure" for his prostate cancer was so severe it burned his insides and instead of a cure the process left him open for more and much more fast moving and severe cancer.

I'm not naive enough to think these things don't happen but it seems like there is a rash of sickness (mostly cancer) touching my life right now....Saying my prayers for their families and saying thanks for the friendships..a man is lucky to have a few very strong friends in his life and I've been blessed with some of the finest. At 80 I'm far from a picture of health but still trucking along and have a good hearty laugh frequently so still enjoy life...just got up this morning with a realization that times draw near regardless of our attempts to change things.

[high standard 40]

While I am not blessed with the as many years as you (I'll soon be 67), I can relate to your situation. In the last two years I have lost many friends, classmates, and relatives. Some due to old age and some to cancer. I also have some friends who are currently battling cancer. I have a few health issues but for the most part I remain very active. We're only on this old rock for a limited number of years. I'm thankful for the years granted me and I'm also thankful for the blessing of friends and family. I hope that you have as many more years as you can stand.

[Rick Hodges]

I understand.

[justashooter]

losing friends in your 80's? lucky guy. I am just recovered from a stroke at 53 and have a friend in hospital with pericardial effusion right now who is same age. I lost an old friend to heart attack at 46.

[DerekP Houston]

Damn it sucks to lose a good friend, wish I had more myself. Sorry to hear about your fishing buddy.

[Big Boomer]

Yesterday I learned that my eldest sister, who is 83+, has experienced a massive stroke and is hospitalized near Dayton, Ohio. We will have to leave southern Ky. where we live and travel up there to possibly see her before she terminates. I am 77 - have had a great life that I would not trade for anyone's life - but hard reality has to set in some time. I am ready to go but in a few minutes I will do 100 belly crunches plus an assortment of other exercises, then ride a stationary bike 10 miles, then do a little over two miles on the treadmill at level 3.5 for 35 minutes. I try to stay in shape. We only go around once so we had better get our priorities straight. Exercise, eat right, and get our head on straight. I have fought three cancer battles: malignant thyroid cancer, esophageal cancer and malignant prostate cancer - plus have developed diabetes type 2. I am a semi-retired Minister with Churches of Christ/Christian Churches. If I never draw another breath, with this one I will say that God is good all the time! There is no substitute for having a vibrant relationship with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. While some think and say that is unrealistic, I say look around you and you will see His designs in everything your eyes can see - even the eye itself. The way the eye functions is/can be no accident. It was designed. That is realism and the only sane way to face the inevitable. Yes, I am tired of losing my good friends, too, and conducted the funerals of most of them. But that is just the way it is. It is, as it is referred to in the Bible, the way of all flesh. We will not escape it. So the best route is to get ready for it. Please do not take these words as a retort. Just my thoughts for the moment. I surely sympathize with anyone who has or shall lose a friend for family member. God's blessings to all. Big Boomer

[lightman]

Nice post, Boomer. Yeah, it hurts to loose friends. But its part of the process. Just remember the Friendship as it was and look forward to seeing them on the other side.

[Big Boomer]

Thanks and right on, lightman! Big Boomer

[shooterg]

Gone to a few too many funerals lately. Miss the folks but at every funeral reception I learned things about my late friends I never knew and it's always been good and made my memories of time spent around 'em even better. Hope whoever's left feels that way when they come to mine !

[mold maker]

Less than an hour ago, I got word that a friend of over 40 years has passed. Last week I got the belated news that another was gone. Age has a way of robbing what we cherish, and asking the question, when will it be me.

[Echo]

I worked out at Pima Air & Space Museum up until a couple of years ago. Largest privately owned (not governmental) Air Museum in the world (>300 airplanes). Three hundred volunteers on the books, many of them old farts like myself (82 in 3 weeks), and thus have lost many friends over the past 15 years. But they were sharp, good folks, and one of the pleasures of working there was working such good guys (and gals).
Our time on this big green lifeboat is limited - none of us will get out alive. New left knee, new lenses in the eyeballs, bypass surgery, &cetera, but in pretty good shape for the shape I'm in, and good for another 5-10 years, I imagine. And I wish the same for my chums here on this forum.

[tinsnips]

Just buried one of my good friends 2 months ago. Just about lost one a month ago in a construction fall. My grandfather died at 93 years old he told me all of his best friends had all died before him sad.

[blackthorn]

Losing good friends is very sad. Contemplating the alternative---not so much!

[mold maker]

At the local watering hole today for lunch, I learned that 29 of my classmates have preceded me.
At 87 my dad wondered aloud if God had forgotten him. All his friends and fellow workers were gone. The next year I mourned his passing, but at least he was back among those he missed. Now i'm beginning to understand what he meant.
I never wanted to be first, but being last is no prize.

[jsizemore]

A friend of mine in his 80's went to the funeral of an old high school classmate. He saw one of his other classmates that was still kickin' just not real high. They talked about old acquaintances and then the classmate got kinda quiet.

My friend Bill said "Charlie, what's wrong?"
Charlie said "Well I'm worried that I'll live so long that there wont be anyone around that will remember me at my funeral."
Bill said "Charlie, I plan on being there."

[abunaitoo]

Lost one just this year.
Heart attack at a Gunshow in the states.
Knew him since grade schools days.
As we get older, we do lose friends.
After their gone, I always wished I'd gotten to know them better.
Wondered if I could have been a better friend.
From time to time, I still think about those that have passed on.
Remember the good times brings a smile.
Sometimes a tear comes out knowing I'll never see them again.

[KenH]

A friend of mine in his 80's went to the funeral of an old high school classmate. He saw one of his other classmates that was still kickin' just not real high. They talked about old acquaintances and then the classmate got kinda quiet.

My friend Bill said "Charlie, what's wrong?"
Charlie said "Well I'm worried that I'll live so long that there wont be anyone around that will remember me at my funeral."
Bill said "Charlie, I plan on being there."

I LIKE that quote! Thanks for the chuckle..... Like ya'll I'm realizing the yrs passing.

[NoAngel]

The other side of the coin: Be thankful you found people that deserve to be called a real friend.
The word "friend" is used too loosely these days for my taste.

Be thankful for the time you've had.

[starnbar]

I started losing friends in 1968 and as the years have passed more and more are gone now. Some were through no fault of their own and I have had a few take their own lives. When I was a young man my dad told me when you get older life will begin to take more and more away from you now I understand. I now have three men that I can count on to be there no questions asked and I don't know how much longer we have here but I know they can count on me and I with them. You have my profound sympathy sir.

[PS Paul]

Sadly or thankfully, depending on how you look at it, I have ZERO friends so will never know the pain of losing them. Moving from one country, to another then many states once here, I have wife, kids and immediate family. Not a single friend I can really think of.
So sorry for your loss, but to have had friends at all and lose them seems a richer life than the largely friendless one I've had.
Still, my wife and kids are so tight-knit, I suppose I'm blessed more than some......
Thanks be to God.

[big bore 99]

I know what you guys mean. Pushing 70 here and have lost a good many friends thru the years. Most of my life I considered my self 10 ft tall and bullet proof. Now realizing my mortality. I've much to be thankful for and I thank the Lord for that.

[Char-Gar]

When we turn 60 we start to enter the dieing time. First comes grandparent, then parents, aunts, uncles, siblings and friends. Then one day we find ourselves all alone with nobody to share the memories of our growing up.

When my grandmother turned 100, I asked her how it felt to be 100 years old. She told me "Son it isn't worth a damn for I have no peers left. That was in 1991, and darn if she wasn't right. Love is a two edge sword, it cuts on one edge and heals on the other. I am consoled knowing that so many are waiting on me to join them. "What a day of rejoicing that will be".

[opos]

When we turn 60 we start to enter the dieing time. First comes grandparent, then parents, aunts, uncles, siblings and friends. Then one day we find ourselves all alone with nobody to share the memories of our growing up.

When my grandmother turned 100, I asked her how it felt to be 100 years old. She told me "Son it isn't worth a damn for I have no peers left. That was in 1991, and darn if she wasn't right. Love is a two edge sword, it cuts on one edge and heals on the other. I am consoled knowing that so many are waiting on me to join them. "What a day of rejoicing that will be".


Mom lived to be 97 and her comments and feelings were much like this...she said when she wanted to talk about her younger days there were no folks around that recalled those days....She went through the dust bowl..through the depresssion...she was young but aware during WW1 and was right in the middle of the time for WW2. She was quite the "hottie" in her day...a flapper with bobbed hair and smoked a cigarette now and then....when she'd even mention some of these kinds of things it fell on deaf ears...She was a Stowe and her great aunt was the author Harriette Beecher Stowe...she loved to talk of "Aunt Hattie" who I think was H.B.S.'s daughter or niece....We lose so much when an older person dies...I guess some folks think it's best to erase history and have it start much later in life but possibly that is one reason the Country is in such a mess right now..not that the things that are happening are so difficult but perhaps because the ability of people to cope has been lost as we don't have a "touch stone" like memories of WW2 where the entire Country had to hunker down and all pull together.....I think if you asked 90% of today's younger folks to ration gasoline....to not eat meat on Tuesday...to save cooking fat and take it to the collection station with flattened cans and paper...they would simply refuse and dump it in the trash or go on and sneak extra gasoline. Anyone think today's grade schoolers would be allowed by their parents to buy "US Savings stamps" (like "war bonds") to help fund the war? Id' bet the parents would get a bull horn and start a protest.

Just sad to lose the history that might be a road map to saving America if it get's really tough.