Sarah Harding, of Girls Aloud, dies at 39

[ahkna]

#BREAKING Sarah Harding dies, family confirms pic.twitter.com/xdbFPCJmi0
- Julian Druker (@Julian5News) September 5, 2021

- Sarah Harding has died at the age of 39 following a battle with cancer

source source

Comments

[zvvl]

39 is no age. So sad.

[futrefilmdirctr]

And my comment reflects that we as a society need to stop attributing value to someone’s life or passing based on how many perceived years they have left.

[fromyourashes]

icon fucking checks
read the room
i bet you're a blessing at funerals

[spiffyfunpants]

You are super weird for coming at someone for mentioning how young someone is. Grow up.

[pastelstar]

jfc it’s always the ones with the wrong size icon

[ahkna]

Comments like this come across as really dismissive.

A life lost at 90 is far more of a celebration because of the amount of life lived. When we refer to someone who is young, like Sarah, it's more in reference to how she should have had another 50 years to live. The tragedy is the years of life not lived.

Personally, the difference in grief between my 88 year old grandmother dying of dementia after a full life lived where she had children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, a full career and just generally a full and interesting life, and my teenage brother who died on a soccer field playing with his friends while his parents screamed and cried and performed CPR on him, was significant. It's significant because he didn't get the 70 extra years my grandma did. That's part of the tragedy and it absolutely is not ableist or ageist, it is simply part of the way human beings observe and respect life.

[futrefilmdirctr]

Not dismissive at all as I said that I UNDERSTAND comments like this. But thanks!

OP’s comment reflects an idea that life has a certain value connected to age. Yes, someone passing at an advanced age (80s, 90s) should be a viewed through a lens of appreciation and celebration of a long life but should do so without devaluing their existence at their advanced age.

Let’s stop pretending we’d be posting the same comments if Sarah was even in her 60s, let alone older, and had passed from cancer.

[futrefilmdirctr]

I apologize if I made this about my hang-ups. I’m an older disabled person and comments like these always spike a huge sense of sadness in me and this wasn’t the appropriate post to bring this up.

[xtinkerbellax]

Firstly, people do leave comments about 60s being young when someone dies at that age. Secondly, why would people leave the same comments about an 85 year old dying of cancer vs a 35 year old? Why is it ageist and not acknowledging the fact that one got to live until old age while the other got half that time? Maybe it comes down to a difference in interpretation because to me it never sounds like someone is devaluing the elder person's life.

[futrefilmdirctr]

Thank you for this reply. You very clearly and kindly stated a point and I truly appreciate that.

I can see where I am possibly conflating the tone and underpinnings of comments like “It’s so sad this person passed but it was their time.” or something along those lines that folks will make when an older individual passes, which certainly wasn’t the OPs comment at all.

[acidosaur]

People will die of old age eventually. How is acknowledging this in any way ageist or ablist?

[ahkna]

It's very dismissive, particularly because I don't think you understand what ageism or ableism are. There's no discrimination in recognizing that a person who dies young has not completed many milestones in life. Nobody is devaluing anyone's life, except perhaps you with these comments which are increasingly disrespectful and rude.

Your example is sadly, not great because that's exactly what people say in posts about people dying of cancer in their 60s though. Regularly.

This is a post about Sarah Harding's death. Please take your disrespectful comments elsewhere.

[sarahbear1]

You’re telling everyone to be upset over the deaths of anyone regardless of age - and people already do that, you’re not saying anything new here. But again, it’s really not the same when my 93 year old grandma eventually passes, compared to my 50 year old friend who died suddenly from a pulmonary embolism.

This sounds like a personal issue you need to work through.