How old were you when people you knew, peers or friends, started to die?

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

I don't mean just one individual. I mean a significant number of peers.

For me it was around when I turned 30. Seemed like there were a significant number of people who died of various types of cancer, as well as AIDS or other disease from that time on.

I imagine if you grow up poor it's considerably earlier.

[derbstyron]

1. around 30s

aunts, uncles, grandparents.

cancer, heart attacks and (mainly) strokes.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. Twenties

Two people I knew in college died of cancer

[madison2000]

3. 6 died in high school

suicide
2 car accidents
hit on bicycle
leukemia
hepatitis

[AllyCat]

21. Jeez Mad2K

Which school (if you don't mind stating it)? Didn't grow up there, but lived there for many years.

[fortyfeetunder]

4. College

Car accidents abound. Tragic ones...

[jonnyblitz]

5. i had many acquiantences die young in the 80's early 90's

of AIDS. that pretty much stopped with the advent of the drug "cocktails" tho. I was in my 20's during this..

[Withywindle]

6. These are people who died, died...

I picked 'childhood' because I've always had a lot of people around me dying...the first one I remember is a close friend of my mom's killing herself when I was 7. It really exploded in high school and college, though. Between '86 and '95:

1 cancer (age 16)
1 brain aneurysm (very sudden; I witnessed it along w/about 30 other people)
3 suicides
2 drug ODs
9 car accidents
3 homicides

all people within 5 years of my age in either direction except two of the car accident fatalities (my maternal grandparents).

Needless to say I was a little messed up for a while.

[BeTheChange]

7. 1 in Jr high

He lived down the street from me and died in the Brazos River. His dad tried to save him and perished too.

Maternal Grandfather shortly after.

6th Grade Algebra teacher committed suicide at winter break.

Kid got stabbed and subsequently died at in school suspension in 9th grade.. No, I do not live in the inner city.

Car wrecks in hs.

4 year old cousin.

Coming from a big family and small community, you know death early.

[AllyCat]

15. Nice Jim Carroll reference :)

Sorry about all your friends. That's really tough on anyone, let alone a child.

[nytemare]

8. Four of my best friends died in a car accident when I was 18

It was really an eye opener. Very sad.

[Mabus]

9. Junior High and High School

Before then I had a number of elderly relatives die. My maternal grandmother, my great uncle, my paternal grandfather, and several great aunts. We're a long lived bunch especially on my dad's side, so my great aunts were in their 90's and 100's. I think 107 was the oldest.

It was in the first two years of junior high (actually a middle school -6 through 8- in OKC) that I became aware that older siblings and relatives of friends of were dying in Viet Nam. I lost three friends because of car accidents

In high school it was car accidents and criminal activity that were the biggest causes of death. As to the former, I think I lost about four people that I actually hung out with that died in car accidents. The latter, criminal activity, worked both sides of the street. I knew several people who were shot by cops for burglary-related incidents. I knew several people who were shot to death in the back of steak house by some traveling killer (I think his name was Stafford).

Since HS, I've had a number of relatives die. mostly elderly. I've also had a number of friends and relatives who have died from suicide, AIDS, murder and sudden heart failure. One of my uncles, the one that didn't drink or smoke died of esophageal cancer.

The past few years have gotten harder. My mom, my paternal grandmother (who is the main reason I'm living where I am, I wanted to be close to her). Two months ago an old friend committed suicide. I just found out this morning that one of my old professors died last week of cancer.

Right now I'm waiting to hear from a friend who was vacationing in Thailand. None of us have heard anything from him since last Friday. I sure as hell don't want to add him to the list.

[CO Liberal]

13. Me, Too

When I was in Seventh Grade, a friend of mine was delivering papers one afternon when he was hit by a car and killed. (The driver was Peggy Cass, the actress.)

When I was a sophomore, another friend of mine died one night of an asthma attack.

When I was a senior, the kid who sat next to me in home room died of a heroin overdose. A few months after graduation, his best friend died of a methodone overdose.

And when I was 21, another friend of mine was stabbed to death by his girlfriend's other boyfriend.

The derath march slowed down after that, until I was in my forties and my aunts and uncles started passing away.

[youngred]

10. when I was 16

I lost my first girlfriend, and within a year lost two family freinds to old age, a friend to a car accident and three in three months to suicide.

Twas a sad time

[kodi]

11. lost two close friends at ages 14 and 15, rock climbing & heart attack

changed me quite a bit.

each second lived is a gift.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

12. Heart attack? Teenager? Or was it an older friend...

[kodi]

19. classmates 9th & 10th grade. one a 100 ft fall, the other heart attack

funny, both were great athletes and friends. and one, even to this day i remember our last minutes and the expression of glee on his face as we parted friends 10 minutes before he died.

i thought a lot about billy and jay this week when i revisited my home town. billy was the best friend and natural athlete i ever knew. he died 2/17/70. since then, i take that day as a vacation day and treat it as a day of remembrance and recommitment to life.

its kind of akin to my personal easter.

yes, friends do matter.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

22. Wow, must have had congenital heart disease, the most common

one that would cause sudden death in the school sports setting is "hypertrophic cardiomyopathy" or "asymnetric septal hypertrophy" (same disease).

[kodi]

24. yeap, that was it.

but.....for some, maybe better to reign in hell than serve in heaven.

and when i hear neil young sing "better to burn out than it is to rust" i wonder who gets the better of the bargin in life.

as for me? i'm just playing the hand's that dealt me.

[shesemsmom]

14. I was 21 when my First Husband died (car wreck)

26 when my best friend died,( cancer) has been down hill ever since.......:cry: To numerous to count

[AllyCat]

16. Many teens in my high school

In four years, I can remember at least 6 who died in a school of about 150 students. Two were farm-related, the rest car accidents.

[n2mark]

17. This was not due to family

but many of my coworkers died from cancer, or were diagnosed with cancer. The strange thing is most of the people I knew died from cancer although family members died from heart or stroke.
Since most of the people I knew died from cancer at the workplace, I wonder about the workplace environment. This is a little scarry. I guess OSHA inspected the areas, we never did receive their analysis.

People who worked at the workplaces always complained about headaches, sinus problems, aches and pains, but I guess we will never know.

[shesemsmom]

18. They determined

that the asbestos plant my friend worked in caused the cancer that killed her at 32 years old

[Left Is Write]

20. I guess I was in my teens, maybe early twenties.

[da_chimperor]

23. One of my friends died in a car accident when I was in 4th grade

That was a long time ago. It was him along with his mother, it was really terrible. I got acquainted with death pretty early.

[skygazer]

25. By the time I was 20, I'd lost at least ten friends

In addition to my mother, I'd lost a large number of friends. One of them was my oldest daughter's father. Most were lost due to drugs, alcohol or suicide. Two were murder. The first friend of mine that died went when I was 15. Drunken car accident.

I have more dead friends than live ones. And only a handful died of AIDS or cancer. Alcohol, drugs, murder and suicide. Oh, and car wrecks but virtually all the car wrecks were alcohol related.

[lpbk2713]

26. I was a pall bearor at age 15.

For a friend that was killed by a reckless driver while riding his bike.

[Norbert]

27. By the time I was out of high school

One good friend my age died of cancer, another guy that lived in my neighborhood was run over and killed at his job in a filling station (the lady in the car hit the accelerator instead of the brake). A guy I want through grade school with was a fatality as he fell asleep at the wheel of his car. Two other guys in my high school gym class was a victim of another traffic accident.

A year after I graduated from high school the lives of five beautiful girls and a guy (traveling in one car) were snuffed out by a pair of wasted kids trying to hill hop in another car.


It's a womder I still felt invincible back then. :shrug: