The Second Best Time to Plant a Tree
April 21st, 2021 by G.
When you are old, what sacrifices would you be willing to make for another year of health to enjoy your children & grandchildren?
What sacrifices would it require to create that year now, by having them earlier?
-thus “XD JCB”
Follow up, from “Spectral Theorem”
How much would your family & each person in it be diminished if you’d never had your youngest kid? How many joys, observations & insights missed? For what convenience/$ would you trade him/her existing? You’re making that trade by not having 1 more.
This haunts me too. My blessings are less then they could be. I have left winning lottery tickets of happiness untouched on the table.
bruce charlton
April 21, 2021
Or – When you are old, would you sacrifice a year of your life for your children and grandchildren to enjoy the chance of a natural, healthy human existence?
That was – in a sense – the choice presented to the old in 2020; and the mass answer was No – I’ll take the extra year, thanks.
G.
April 21, 2021
And the year was a year of loneliness to boot.
To be fair, I really don’t think the old were given a choice. And at least around here, the old are some of those who most vigorously ignored the mandates. The enforcers have usually been people in their 40s or 50s.
bruce charlton
April 21, 2021
The choice was not given politically – but spiritually it was.
Old people nowadays are not what they were when I were a lad…
Rozy
April 21, 2021
Do we believe that quality of life is more important than quantity of life? One of the sisters I minister to has cancer, currently in “remission” or under control, never cured. She had a stem cell transplant in 2018 and has had to isolate, wear a mask, etc. from then on. She said that if she had to do it over she wouldn’t, because the quality of her life is so low. So when the cancer comes back she’s not going to “fight” it, but allow it to takes its course.
On the other subject: It takes faith to have children–not time, not money, just faith. My biggest regret in life is choosing not to get pregnant before moving across the country way back in 1994. I was healthy and strong, but just didn’t feel like going through the “inconvenience” of a pregnancy while packing up a house and moving, buying a new home, unpacking, etc. etc. We had trouble getting pregnant after that and I feel like I missed out on the blessing of a second daughter. I’ve repented of my faithlessness, but the regret is still there. There are times when I wish we didn’t have the option of contraceptives. My grandmother gave birth to 15 children over a span of 23 years. Amazingly the first and last were born on the same day! She was 46 years old when she had the 15th. My mother was #12. Children are a HUGE blessing! I would have liked to have had 5 more, but I missed out on a decade of childbearing having to wait until age 30 to marry.
Jacob G.
April 21, 2021
Rozy,
I’ve heard many cases of people receiving impressions that it was time to go, and not to fight it.
I don’t think we can say blanket that we are quality v. quantity of life, its going to vary from case to case based on factors, of which we are only dimly aware. Thus revelation.
Rozy
April 21, 2021
Jacob — you are correct; individual circumstances are different and we do believe in revelation. I was speaking in general terms as it applies to policy. Government, or even doctors, shouldn’t make decisions for individuals and families.