Barry Gibb is Knighted

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LilyM said:
But then he certainly had a very full life and achieved plenty, so to me somehow it doesn’t feel like he went too early.
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Regardless of what anyone has accomplished, to die at 53 is tragic and sad.
 
My sister is 55. I cannot imagine the last two years without her, and I’m sure her kids can’t either.

My brothers are 63 and 61. Ditto for the last 10 years.

My dad died at 74. I’m grateful for that extra 20 years. Mom is 83 - thirty years.

We cannot measure the quality of someone else’s life in the terms of years or age. Not our place.
 
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His brothers died young. In his 30 ies and 50ies is young to die for me…,and all his three younger brothers dead means quite a lot of suffering .
 
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I don’t know if this is relevant but once when I was a kid I asked my grandmother if she could be any age which would she choose and she replied ‘fifty’ and I thought ‘what?? fifty??’ Now that I’m fifty and keeping in mind that she was in her 70’s when she told me this, I can understand better where she was coming from.

I still wouldn’t choose to be 50 again but when I’m in my 70’s I’ll bet it will look more appealing.
 
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I’m finding that 45 isn’t really so bad. It’s a bit liberating. You’re too old to care and still young enough to do just about anything you want.
 
tomarin said:
I don’t know if this is relevant but once when I was a kid I asked my grandmother if she could be any age which would she choose and she replied ‘fifty’ and I thought ‘what?? fifty??’ Now that I’m fifty and keeping in mind that she was in her 70’s when she told me this, I can understand better where she was coming from.

I still wouldn’t choose to be 50 again but when I’m in my 70’s I’ll bet it will look more appealing.
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Interesting. I’m 59 now and I’d answer the same - if I could be any age again, I’d choose 50. I still had my health and some youthful vigor, plenty of life experience and was also free of many responsibilities. By 59 the unstoppable force of aging is taking its course. It’s not too bad yet, though. 🙂
 
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Fifty was almost a dinosaur when we were kids!😁
Our teachers were already " old " in elementary.as we saw them, about…25 !😁
 
tomarin said:
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Edmundus1581:
I was always puzzled that some of the BeeGee’s early masterpieces (60’s and 70’s) were not more widely recognised for their songwriting (and harmonies!).

Words is one of my all time favourite songs, in any genre.
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‘Odessa’ is one of my favorite albums of all time. Wonderfully and effortlessly atmospheric.

Freezing,
Sailing around in the North Atlantic,
Can’t seem to leave the sea anymore.
I just can’t understand
Why you just moved to Finland …
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Thanks for filling in my BeeGee’s knowledge. As a teenager in the 70s I knew their early (pre-72) stuff from the radio and the Best of Bee Gees album. I didn’t realise that one of my favourites, First of May, was from Odessa. I’ve had a quick look at it in Wikipedia and a listen on youtube. Lovely to hear Robin’s beautiful vocals on the first track.

The album theme of the loss of a ship reminds me of several poems and paintings, and of course, Gordon Lightfoot.

It’s still playing - nice 🙂
 
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graciew said:
Fifty was almost a dinosaur when we were kids!😁
Our teachers were already " old " in elementary.as we saw them, about…25 !😁
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My parents were “older” - and 45 years ago it was weird to have a kid at 38 and 43.

So you gotta be OLD to be “old” to me. 🙂
 
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“If it weren’ t for my brothers ,I wouldn’ t be here” said Barry Gibb at the ceremony .
Isn 't that something…
 
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I agree. I was one of those people who had a freak out when I turned 40, and now I wonder what the big deal was.
 
45 wigged me out for a while. 40 didn’t bother me much, it was just weird that I was suddenly that age.

Now that I’m here, I’m like - so what? 😆😆😆
 
Hi,

I apologise for coming across as callous in my earlier comments. It absolutely was not my intent.

A word of explanation …

I lost a dearly loved family member to cancer who was in his 30s. Of course I (and the whole family) grieved deeply, still do, and miss him very much even though he went 30 years ago. And of course phrases like “gone too soon” spring to mind.

I’ve also had family members in their teens, 40s and 70s have serious health crises to the point where their lives have been at risk. And lost my grandparents, all when they were in their 80s.

The point is, ANY time that a loved one dies is probably going to feel like it’s “too soon”. I don’t doubt that most if not all of the same feelings would come up for me even if each and every one of my loved ones lived to be 1000, and I’m sure I’m not unusual in that regard.

It seems to me, though, that it is far more about us being unprepared to let them go than anything else. Which I guess is part of love, but not always a healthy one - you know the old saying “if you love someone set them free.” In the end the people in our lives do belong to God, and not us, and we only kinda borrow them from Him.
 
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But we’ve all experienced the death of young people. My nephew died very suddenly - VERY suddenly - in his early 30s (in my brother’s front yard). His death (he left behind four young children and a wife) felt far different than the equally unexpected death of my 74 year old father. My father was older; he had lived, and someone dying at 74 isn’t as out of the ordinary as someone dying very suddenly at 30.

My paternal grandfather died when I was four. My paternal grandmother when I was 14. My maternal grandfather died when I was 18, my maternal grandmother at 28. I’ve lost cousins, aunts, uncles - when all of your grandparents save one were born years before the Titanic sank, your family is much older, and death was assuredly a part of my life for nearly as long as I can remember. The death of someone in their seventies is far different than the death of someone in their thirties.

I don’t think my dad “died too soon” in the same way that I think my nephew “died too soon”. My dad died too soon because I wasn’t ready for him to die (I was only 31). My nephew died too soon because he was only 30. My dad lived to see his children grow up and get married. He knew of the birth of one of his great-grandchildren. He was married to my mother for 55 years. He had lived. My nephew? Not so much. One of his children doesn’t even remember him.

I worked in oncology for 7 years. It was very different to watch the death of a peer over the death of someone the age of my parents or my grandparents.

It has nothing to do with “being unprepared to let them go”. It has to do with age, plain and simple, and the expectation of what we believe a “long life” should be.
 
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Pup7 said:
But we’ve all experienced the death of young people. My nephew died very suddenly - VERY suddenly - in his early 30s (in my brother’s front yard). His death (he left behind four young children and a wife) felt far different than the equally unexpected death of my 74 year old father. My father was older; he had lived, and someone dying at 74 isn’t as out of the ordinary as someone dying very suddenly at 30.

My paternal grandfather died when I was four. My paternal grandmother when I was 14. My maternal grandfather died when I was 18, my maternal grandmother at 28. I’ve lost cousins, aunts, uncles - when all of your grandparents save one were born years before the Titanic sank, your family is much older, and death was assuredly a part of my life for nearly as long as I can remember. The death of someone in their seventies is far different than the death of someone in their thirties.

I don’t think my dad “died too soon” in the same way that I think my nephew “died too soon”. My dad died too soon because I wasn’t ready for him to die (I was only 31). My nephew died too soon because he was only 30. My dad lived to see his children grow up and get married. He knew of the birth of one of his great-grandchildren. He was married to my mother for 55 years. He had lived. My nephew? Not so much. One of his children doesn’t even remember him.

I worked in oncology for 7 years. It was very different to watch the death of a peer over the death of someone the age of my parents or my grandparents.

It has nothing to do with “being unprepared to let them go”. It has to do with age, plain and simple, and the expectation of what we believe a “long life” should be.
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Of course mileage varies - I wouldn’t expect anyone to have exactly the same reaction to any and every passing.

I’m essentially saying the same thing about the brothers as you are about your grandfather. Maurice had been married for nearly 30 years and his children were mid to late 20s at the time of his passing - so there quite possibly were marriages and grandchildren. Similar with Robin, apart from one of his children who was only 4 years old (which I didn’t know about at the time I made my comment).

I know that I would consider a very successful career, near-30-year marriage and having raised children well into adulthood to be a rich and full life. These are blessings that I, and many people, haven’t had. Am I callous for thinking that maybe it’s enough?
 
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Well,we all come from " somewhere" when we speak or write.
Personally,I watched an interview where he (Barry) couldn t speak about his brothers without crying. He dried his tears as he spoke. He lost them all,close as they were
Emotional yes…we are not made of plastic…Made my heart shrink…

Becoming a knight may or may not mean to some of us as it does to others. And in this case,he certainly appreciated it as if it were for all his brothers too.
This is about him and his brothers by extension.
And a celebration.
 
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LilyM said:
I know that I would consider a very successful career, near-30-year marriage and having raised children well into adulthood to be a rich and full life. These are blessings that I, and many people, haven’t had. Am I callous for thinking that maybe it’s enough?
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😳 Honestly, what you wrote here sounds a bit like jealousy.
 
LilyM said:
Am I callous for thinking that maybe it’s enough?
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I don’t know that callous is the right word, but I will say I think you’re the only person I’ve ever encountered who has this view. When I read an obituary of let’s say an 85 year old man, I usually think “he lived a good full life”. 85 is good run. Not so much with a 53 year old, regardless of what he accomplished, he missed out on a lot of life.
 
Jealousy? Look, if I’m in a restaurant enjoying a very nice delicious and filling burger, I’m not going to be jealous of the fellow.at the next table who has a fillet steak. That’s not how I roll.

But I am going to be impatient if he keeps fussing and fretting and sending it back to the kitchen a dozen times saying it’s not done just so. Not because I’m jealous, but because to me he’s coming across as at least somewhat unappreciative and ungrateful. And I’m sure the staff would think the same.

You know the saying ‘I used to complain that i had no.shoes until I met a man who had no feet’?
 
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