Comments on: When the young die

By: Raymon Luskin

Raymon Luskin — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 11:30:12 +0000

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By: Fred Khumalo

Fred Khumalo — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:20:38 +0000

Ubuntu ungamntu ngabanye abantu”: people are people through other people. HHHHhhhm, brush up on your isiXhosa. It should be umntu ngumntu ngabantu ( a person is a person through other people) or, if you want to add a dash of originality, you could have said: abantu ngabantu ngabanye abantu: people are people through other people. Otherwise a deeply-felt, moving piece of writing…

By: Jason

Jason — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:45:11 +0000

Oh Peter, what are you on about??

By: MLH

MLH — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:37:34 +0000

Which makes it important to teach our children that adversity can be vanquished. Making life too easy for them does them no favours.
Only a couple of generations ago, diptheria could take a child or more from any home almost overnight. Perhaps we have become too comfortable with the notion that the medical profession has all the answers.
And while AIDS and all its related illnesses is pure tragedy, what really makes it any different to any other dread disease? Time limits are also set by cancer. Severe disability also reduces lifespan.
And flu? Perhaps we are only just getting life into perspective!

By: Peter

Peter — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:20:53 +0000

Stephen Gately a great artist? I think not. There are many great artists active in the field of contemporary music, but to include Gately in that group, in my view, significantly devalues the term.

By: yAM

yAM — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:34:41 +0000

There have been a few times in my youth where I have been very depressed and contemplated suicide. Now I’m glad I didn’t. Things did get better. Or did I just learn how to deal with what life throws at me better? Now with two little children and another on the way, all I can say is that I have never been happier. Being a parent is the meaning of life for me. And I will never leave them intentionally. It is my responsibility as a mother to take care of myself emotionally and physically so that I can give these little monsters the best chance in life. I might not be able to provide for everything financially but they will forever have my love, my patience and my gentle guidance through life’s difficulties.

By: Kit

Kit — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:54:45 +0000

Mark Kerruish, I think you might find it’s young, not young as in a child but young as in someone who isn’t old nor even middle-aged. People aren’t supposed to die at 35. That’s why HIV is such a painful disease to bear as a society and as individuals. It takes away a bit of our sense of what is right, how the world works, as it takes our children before their parents.

Besides, you know how old the office bearers of the ANC Youth League are? Many of them are in their early to mid-30s and still referred to as ‘young’, ‘learning’, etc. Not that that’s exactly proof, but…

The life expectancy is as low as 50 because of this AIDS which stalks particularly the young (or is that middle-aged? Do we become middle-aged because of the circumstances of others or our own perceptions?). Remove that one single factor and that lethal TB/HIV combo also falls away. People of this age are at the pinnacle of their productive lives. If that’s not young, what is young? Someone under 18? Do we see aging as inevitable and rapid, our progression into old age beginning as soon as we are born or only once we reach the ‘middle age’ of 25?

That is an odd comment, not necessarily borne out by societal perceptions other than the mere mathematical fact of AIDS(youth-eating)-skewed life expectancy.

By: Mark Kerruish

Mark Kerruish — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:00:04 +0000

No offence intended, sir, but in a country with a 50 life expectancy you think mid-30s young?

By: Sello

Sello — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:54:35 +0000

Absolutely true!! I concur 100% percent with your sentiments. And who was the poet who wrote that ‘Death be Not Proud’ and in the process basically ‘emasculated’ the concept of death in every way possible until only a cowardly facade was left. We should also remember that death also makes life worth living and we should indeed seize the day for we do not know when our respective lines will be drawn in the sand.

Death should definitely not be glamourised as it will only rob the youth that have so much potential to embrace an “easy way out” attitude to every enduring problem they face.

We should remember that suicide is really a permanent solution to a temporary problem! What goes up must come down they say – therefore we should always be patient in times of sorrow as our time to once again experience joy will present itself like a very reliable friend being there for us in times of grief.