h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Pheloxi you certainly owe me NO apology!

Thanks for being on h2

I was 29, when he diied. in a few weeks I will be 40.

It may seem odd, but i am glad in many ways i got all that over with when i was still a child. Entire family gone by the time i was 12, so it's never going to happen again.

It's horrible seeing friends going through all that now; i find it very hard to think of anything useful to say. Now entering a new phase "When friends of your own age start dying off"; that's not easy either.

"In the midst of life, we are in death"; to me means appreciate your friends even more, who knows how long any of us are here for?

zdt

How true Terri, maybe that is why I do not make a lot friends these days, having seen so much death in the past, seems to harden your soul, so that you are afraid of making new friends as you know that some time you will lost them
Smudger,

Yes, Smudger, i went through that stage too, for ages. Then somehow i came out the other side & thought "hang on a minute"; if you do that, maybe you *might* save yourself some pain because a loved one dies; but in the meantime you haven't been part of their life if you avoided them just because they are mortal. You are going to die, so am i, so is absolutely everybody here on hootoo & in the entire world.Nobody knows when or how.

So it becomes even more important to give love NOW while they are still with us. It's really, really difficult when you have had many deaths; but i am trying very hard to turn it into a positive thing:how lucky i was to have known these people.

Hi Terri, I think it was the way I lost some of my mates, like the ones who were killed in the Piper Alpha explosion, I mean one minute they were there, then gone
A few others died in chopper or plane crashes while working offshore, so you never get the chance to say good bye to them

Not like the ones you know are dying, and you have the time to say your good byes

The worst ones though are the ones when you are actually there with them, that takes a lot out of you
Smudger,

I don't think there is any such thing as a "good" death, the best is obviously "died peacefully in their sleep with family at their side" but this is pretty unlikely.

My nightmare is dying alone, probably in pain that i can't communicate & this is highly likely. if there is any way i could stop this happening to someone else, i will do it. Someone i know well has the same nightmare, but he is far more scared than me.

It's horrible, trying to keep a balance between being a caring friend but not being totally used as a doormat & i am no angel; end up exploding in frustration when you offer support & get kicked in the teeth.(not literally!but emotionally)

zdt

Terri I think it would be harder in many ways at an older age.
12 and 13 are so difficult anyway.
Instead of magic so many harsh realities are being exposed.
I will always remember this as a youth, leanring how shocking people you thought you knew can be.
I cannot imgine having lost everybody at that age.





Love and loss ramble......

I have thought about the magical thinking aspects of childhood may very well have helped me in some ways when I lost my brother. Magical in that I could believe their energy was used to light a star in the night sky

I was told I could talk to them but they could not talk to me. My Granmother also described peoples ways using weather or animal terms She told me the waves and moon were connected and they in turn were connected to the stars and planets.... That was enough magic and a touch of science to keep my mind occuppied

She died after a few precious conversations.
A small prize for the losses but it really helped my active mind.
No matter what I have believed over the years on my varied paths!

I've "talked" to them.

I am glad I was trained to look up to observe the changes, wish and wonder about what is going on up in the sky!
Still amazes me if we look far enough, we are looking at what happened in the past
I love the night sky!

Hello people! Might I be allowed to chime in?

I am a non-smoker in a family of non-smokers. Neither my dad nor my mom smokes. My sister doesn't smoke, neither does her husband, and his mom, dad and three brothers are also all non-smokers. As well I live in a country where not that many people smoke. For a long time the habit of smoking has been in decline. At the University where I study, very few of the students smoke. Almost none of the female students smoke.

Smoking is generally recognised as unhealthy. But it is not the biggest health problem here. In my country, by far the biggest problem is HIV/AIDS. Tuberculosis and malaria also claim many victims. And a great number of people get killed on the roads. But still there is general awareness of smoking as a health risk.

At the same time there are lots of farmers in the country who live by growing tobacco! A lot of it is exported. I am well aware of the extent to which neighbouring countries like Zimbabwe and Malawi also depend on exporting tobacco. But I do think that if they can't make a profit with tobacco, they'll find some other crops to produce. But they are managing to make quite a bit of money with the tobacco right now.

When I was young almost everybody smoked. My mom and dad both smoked at first, as did almost everybody else in South Africa except for most women from an indigenous African background. My mom smoked right through both pregnancies. I am sure it did give me health problems because as a child I suffered from asthma and allergies. As well I always found the smell of cigarette smoke violently offensive. Indeed that was a serious problem in my relationship with my mom. Most of the time I found her presence to be repulsive because she always smelt of smoke! It was no pleasant experience to kiss her. This lasted for two and a half decades! For my whole childhood and young adulthood I avoided my mom as much as possible. Make no mistake - I loved her, I just couldn't stand being near her.

My mom stopped smoking only a few years ago, because she developed serious lung problems. They were so bad that finally she was *physically* incapable of smoking. Her lungs were so weak she couldn't even effectively inhale the smoke. She has not smoked for several years now but still her lungs are terrible and she wheezes really bad whenever she has been a little bit active or when she's a bit stressed.

My dad thankfully stopped smoking when I was just a year or two old and hasn't done it since.

I want to note something some of you may find interesting. When my mom stopped smoking, I started gradually becoming more tolerant of cigarette smoke. It doesn't bother me that much any more. But I still find it unpleasant. I just don't wish to run out of the room or jump out of the window when someone inside is smoking any more. I also find it more difficult to detect now.

I also want to note that I find certain kinds of smoke more offensive than others. Least offensive is pipe tobacco smoke ... cigars are also OK ... but most cigarettes smell, to me, quite foul ... and I sometimes wonder if they're not throwing in all sorts of poisonous chemicals into mass-produced cigarettes?

I do think separate smoking/non-smoking bars and restaurants might work. Though I'm not as sensitive to smoke as some people are, I still find it bothersome if there are cigarette fumes in the air when I want to enjoy the taste of my food. And the smoke always wafts from the smoking section into the non-smoking parts.

There shouldn't be a war between smokers and non-smokers ... but certainly I know of quite a number of people who severely dislike the smell of cigarette smoke, and that's apart from people who get serious allergic reactions from it.

As far as pet allergies are concerned ... we have cats, and so far I can think of only one person who really had a problem with them. This person got bad hay fever while visiting ... which was helped by anti-allergy medication and it didn't mess up the visit. But it was just that one occasion. No other friends, loved ones or visitors ever seemed to be bothered. We have a large house and outside yard where the cats spend a lot of time, and I don't think we have a very high cat-hair concentration in the house. But as a host receiving guests one must always look closely and notice if a guest is experiencing discomfort! And if it *really* has to be done we can ask friends to keep our cats for a while! We have a few cat-loving friends who usually take care of our cats when we are on vacation, and we can ask them. As a host I would not want that a visitor should suffer severe discomfort during a visit!

I am actually allergic to cats myself. At least I used to be. I used to be allergic to lots of different things but now they don't affect me any more. They seem to have been mere 'kinks' that were straightened out as my immune system developed. I know of other people who also seem to have 'outgrown' certain allergies.

The whole issue of allergies is an interesting one, as is the issue of cancer rates and air/other forms of pollution, as is the issue of 'responsible healthy living' ...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/F101497?thread=2207860&post=25812540#p25812540 Thanks for the post Willem Since we continued talking elsewhere on the topic = the link

It might interest you to know I'm actually a user of tobacco! I use it as an insect repellent on my plants.

Yes, nicotine is highly poisonous to most arthopods, especially insects. I have to keep smokers away from my pet ones.

"I have to keep smokers away from my pet ones."

Snailrind that sound like you have flea circus.

We did have an infestation of headlice recently. They must have been super-atomic-wonderlice, because we caught them off a very heavy smoker. As the same guy managed to kill off my entire population of bush crickets in a single smoking session, perhaps he was trying to fill the void in my life left by the crickets. A poor attempt, really, as the crickets were supposed to be dinner for my pet tarantula.............

Poor crickets!

Generally I love insects ... I tolerate a *moderate* amount of eating of my plants, but I try to dissuade them from attacking in massive numbers!

It can be pretty infuriating, can't it, when something you've nurtured from a seed gets munched to death? I'm not a big gardener, so I'm inordinately proud when a plant flourishes under my care. I've had some melon plants eaten by a sheep, and a cactus scoffed by escapee stick insects. I was less than happy about those incidents.

Lately I've had a lot of success with insectivorous swamp plants, though. Swings and roundabouts...

Apparently, citronella (whatever that is) is another great insect repellent.

Citronella is an oil derived from certain species of grasses! We used to use it to try and repell cats from certain places in the house where they were wont to urinate. I've not tried it as an insecticide yet ...

Anyways I must caution that citronella fumes can be deadly to pet birds! And can also harm cats and dogs in large quantities or concentrations!

Yikes! I didn't realise it was a problem for mammals and birds.

I'm told that spraying your garden with vinegar deters cats from using it as a toilet and helps your plants to grow. I intend to try it on our lawn this summer.