The other day I read a comment somewhere around here that really got my attention. I don't remember who wrote it but it said something around what people actually remember you for after your dead... your kindness or the like.

I did not disagree with the person but it did hit me, many (most?) are not remembered at all after they die.

I thought of the thousands, 10's of thousands and more killed in floods or by plague and the like. Those people are just wiped out. It's as if they never existed. But even in cities and small towns this is the case.

Remember satori's friend (a young woman with leukemia) who died last year? She was a baby, 19 or 20 I think and I asked satori if anyone in the town remembered her or missed her.  She thought a minute and said exactly what I expected. "No, they have all moved on."

So much for your own importance. Heroes whose lives had meaning die every day and people don't give a shit. They'd rather read gossip.

This is to their detriment, I'd say.

Thoughts?

I think I'm gonna cry. I really don't have much to say.

Everyone is/will be a forgotten soul because everyone is not cared for by at least a few billions of people. But most people have at least one person who will remember them or weep for them.

Even a celebrity may mean nothing to billions of people. But may mean everything to their other billions of fans. I doubt everyone cried over Michael Jackson when he passed away.

Oh, I was wrong when I said I don't have much to say.

I think maybe the living don't always like to think about the dead because no-one wants to admit their own mortality.  

I agree, Dorothy but if they did think about their own mortality they would probably live better lives.

I agree - I just recently watched (think 60 minutes) news-story on the very high cost of end of life care, and how basically that time really sucks - nursing homes, critical care rooms, tubes all over your body, pain, being kept alive by machines.......the doctor they interviewed said medical costs like this are part of what is driving up the high cost of health care.  And that the basic problem is that in this country (others as well) we just do not want to accept the fact that we are mortal.  Doing whatever it takes to keep someone alive another month or two is playing God, and most people would not choose to spend their dying days this way.  

My mother spent years volunteering at a hospice house for marginalized patients (mostly impoverished aids victims or elderly cancer patients with no family) and her main job was to just sit with the patients as they slept.   To help pass time she would rub lotion on their hands, and she told me this was the one thing she always remembered after the patients passed... how beautiful and unique their hands were.  

I think about my dad everyday...and we often discuss him...his good and bad sides...mostly the good...why he was like that...analysing him, and both my grandfathers...love listning to people describe them, one I have not met...but I still feel so attaced to him...my grandmother , my other grandmothers last boyfriend...it is so nice just hearing stories about them, and there good qualeties...me and my family are always talking about them...

however I do agree that in general it is little remebarance of the people passed...but when I was at the graveyard last week, viseting my dad...so many other people had been there that day and there where cadlelights all over ...did not expect that , when its not the holidays...was moved to tears...so beutiful...I love graveyards ...thay are so peaceful...love going there and just read the stones...I allways imagine a people standing where there stone and suddenly the hole place is filled with people from diffrent eras, ages ....the only time I feel sad is when there are small children

I seem to have misunderstood ...its more in general...I agree...I think it sad how little we remeber the dead....jwe ust move on , especially when there is natural disasters or deaths that affects a lot of people at once...there is more fucus on healing  of the living , denial   progressing away from the disaster ,cleaning it away and little remebarance of the individuals

i still sometimes think about satori's friend.  though i knew next to nothing about her :(

people remember stories.  the names may fade, with time, but the stories can last forever.  or as long as people do.

i'm not so concerned about being remembered as much as having done something useful.  and lived well.

I know that the friends I have lost that have died, and the family that has died, lives on in me.  I remember them, and I think about them.  I talk about them sometimes, but for the living to be focused on the dead too much is unhealthy. 

@K:

I agree!

I believe that even the dead have the right to move on, without the living refusing to let go, whether it is in memory of, or contacting them in the afterlife.

ASHE'