I found that quite cutting. I'm not sure I could go on if my wife died prematurely. My mind has turned to this on occassions when people close to me have suffered severe illness or died, and I just can't see in my minds eye how I could cope.

A close family friend took his own life shortly after his wife died of cancer. After over 25 years of living together, I guess it was just too much for him to continue without her.

I was too young at the time to understand and to be honest I'm still too young to understand.

I’m going to put down HN now and play Minecraft with my wife or something, because now I feel like I’m squandering my time with her.

When those are the causes of death that we start to track, perhaps the world will become a better place.

If we actually understood that people literally died of not having enough money, or of lack of willpower to deal with a bureaucracy, or of homelessness, or of their mental state, there’s every chance that something might change.

if you actually understood the implications of following your logic, please take a moment to explain:

why do people not have enough money?

do some people waste away whatever time and money they have?

do some people fail to develop any marketable skills?

are some people just incapable of rendering valuable labor or service to anyone?

what percentage of those without money fit into that hopeless category?

what should be done about those people?

why does money exist in the first place?

how do we ensure that everybody will "have enough money"?

why do people lack willpower?

why do bureaucracies exist and what is the alternative?

why does homelessness exist?

do people in dire straits often reject help?

do people in dire straits often make things worse for themselves?

how do we force people to stop doing that?

why do people have differing mental states?

that's just for a start. then answer those questions in context of each individual life and death. but that won't be necessary if one thinks that all homeless are just "the homeless", or that all poor people are just "the poor".

but that would be oversimplification and "heavily missing information" in many cases, don't you think?

I understand the spirit of this, but it's entirely subjective and way too open for interpretation.

I think by and large people do understand these things contribute to illness & death, they are just able to separate themselves from that reality on a day-to-day basis.

What do you put down for a drug overdose? Was he chasing the next good time or escaping the pain of being molested as a child?

Doctors would also be responsible for performing inquests into non-medical circumstances of a death, for which they are not trained and don't have any powers to gather evidence or take statements. I can't see that being popular with doctors.

Doctor would not be able to sign a death certificate until a Judge had completed an inquest into the non-medical circumstances. In which case the Judge would have to do so without the benefit of a medical certification as to the medical cause of death, which would have to remain open until the end of the inquest. In which case, I don't see how the inquest can reasonable be completed without a certification as to the medical facts, which is all a death certificate is.

Neither of those make any sense, so I'm sure those aren't what you are suggesting. How do you see this working?

http://freakonomics.com/podcast/bad-medicine-part-3-death-di...

Don't be afraid to let a little poetry into your life.

> he died because he was homeless and couldn't find his way to the help he needed.

taking your approach, you'd also have to allow at least some of those death certificates to list cause of death as: "he died because he was homeless, and he was homeless because he was a drunkard and an addict who was horrible to his family and most everyone he dealt with."

or is the intent to permit maudlin sentiments only?

and "he died of being homeless"? why was he homeless? because society was so cruel and uncaring? sure, he had nothing to do with it himself.

the other comment is right, this path inevitably leads to judgment and speculation.

Or, from a different epistemological viewpoint, the root cause of everything is God’s will.

Ascribing importance to intermediate causes is highly subjective, even assuming they can be reliably determined.

Only if you think that the laws of physics are deterministic, I guess.

When I called to have my late wife removed from my insurance at work, the lady who changed it messed up and removed her effective the day before she passed away - so all sorts of insurance claims started bouncing back "not covered". It took me a year and a half to get in touch with someone at the insurance company who said "oh my. you poor dear. let me fix this" and she had it corrected in less than five minutes.. but for that 18 months I had to deal with almost-monthly bills coming in with her name on them...

We never hear about the wife that lives 10 more years after their 85+ year old husband dies.

I'd be surprised if this hasn't been tested.

Maybe you don't hear. My grandparents were together since about 16 and my grandmother passed away 12 years ago. And I never seen couple more in love, including my grandma having tatoo of his name on her chest, something unheard of and frown upon back in the days. And my grandfather is turning 94 this summer.

If a millions people have marathon gaming sessions day in and day out, doesn’t it only make sense that one of them will die in their chair once in awhile? Was gaming really the cause?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_vein_thrombosis

I had two cats, but they've since passed, and even before that it wasn't the same.

It's been almost ten years, and there's not a few days that go by without me thinking that nobody would miss me if I decided to join her.

But I have other people who rely on me, my children, my sister, the company I work for. So even though I am in tears as I write this, I know that I have to cope, I have to find a way to be.

It's going to take a while.

I was working late to make up some time and had headphones on. Wife told me "I'm gonna go soak in the tub and go to bed, see you in a bit." A couple hours later I finished what I was doing and headed towards the bedroom. I noticed the bathroom light was still on, and found her. Apparent heart attack and she drowned in the bathtub, and she'd been gone a while by the time I found her. Sudden wrenching loss. No opportunity to make up for fights. No goodbye. Just.. gone.

Anyway. This isn't about me. This is about the community helping Matt, in whatever way we can.

I often wonder if I would have been a better person if she was there.

I'm a father, and I used to worry about what might happen to my young kids if I died. It would be a great comfort to me to imagine them, after they got older, making an effort to interview people who knew me, asking about what I was interested in, what mattered to me, what I used to talk about, how I talked, how serious/happy/neurotic/patient/stingy/grouchy/etc. I was. With this model, they could imagine conversations with me, discuss things with me, try not to disappoint me, etc.

Fortunately--for me, anyway--my kids are old enough now that they will never get my voice out of their heads, even if I get hit by a bus tomorrow (and even if they are driving the bus!) It's too late for them.

How about you? If you seriously think she might have made you a better person, why not help her by giving her a second chance?

And most people do boot have the skill to do a full character model at the age of 6. It takes special talent nature to do that even when old. That is even ignoring the fact that people change and adapt over time in hard to predict ways.

So this thought exercise is actually protecting your own wishes through the light of some imagined model of a person. Might as well use Tarot cards instead.

The poster said he was 6 in 2001. It's no longer 2001, and he's no longer 6. I told him he couldn't have done it back then but it might be worth trying now.

I think what GP is aiming at is this: If you think you are a worse person (whatever that means) than you could be, be it from your or any other persons' perspective, is it too late to change?

Or put differently: Years after someones death, the picture of what one could be, is a mind-game already. From here to picturing what you/your mind would like to change is not that much of a stretch.

In general, your parents might be responsible for what you are when you turn 18, but every step you do afterwards is your responsibility. I know people who are over 50 and still make their parents responsible for the bad things in their life, ignoring the 30 years they had to fix the problems of their past.

So yes, it might be a bad start to loose your mother that early, but if you think you could do better (by your own standards): You are the only person who has the authority and power to change yourself.

Sorry, this might sound a little tough given the overall topic, but I think it is is very important to realize this early in life.

I can say I am where I am because of all of my hard work. But I know that isn't entirely true. It would have been much harder for me to move out of the small town I grew up in and where I went to college, to the city where I live with much better opportunities making far too little to support myself in the beginning without their support. I can draw a pretty straight line from my first low paying job as a computer operator that didn't pay enough to make it to where I am today 20 years later.

If it weren't for them, I probably would have gotten a job that paid more then working on mainframes but without the growth opportunities in a small town.

You're a strong person.

For what it's worth Matt, you have mine.