posted on December 7, 2004 01:18:01 PM new
Every year at Christmas time, I get the guilts...
If you were to cause the death of someone, even though it was unintentional... are you still guilty of murder?
Maggie
posted on December 7, 2004 01:25:06 PM new
Completely depends on the situation.
If you were to say that you were driving drunk and unintentionally hit and killed someone, then yes.
If on the other hand you said "I wish you would just die" to someone that turns out to have been a manic depressive with suicidal tendancies and they decide to down a bottle of vicoden that night, then no.
Got a hypothetical you would like to offer up?
~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~ • ~~~
If it's really "common" sense, why do so few people actually have it?
posted on December 7, 2004 01:46:20 PM new
I did in fact cause the death of someone.
I was 12 years old.. I belonged to a Girl's Youth Group at my church.
Every year at Christmas we would bring small gifts to the local "Nursing Home" along with cookies and baked goods.. we would sing carols and chat with the old folks. I was asked to wear a Santa suit that year and was to go up to the rooms of those who were to old or frail to attend the party in the reception room, and deliver their presents. After entering the room of one very old gentleman, greeting him with a robust.. HO Ho Ho Merry Christmas, he dropped dead on his pillow.. I was traumatized to say the least..and the guilt it has stayed with me since.. I think I scared the poor soul to death... Maggie
posted on December 7, 2004 01:59:19 PM new
i'm sorry, maggie, but... lol >>>>>
-can you ever be serious?
(Do you know I saw this very same flashback scene in a movie? I forget which it was, but they were girlscouts. So did they steal a scene from your life here?)
You know I was expecting you to say you knocked off one of your husbands giving him a christmas eve roll in the snow...
THAT I might have believed!
LOL
00000
[ edited by neroter12 on Dec 7, 2004 02:00 PM ]
posted on December 7, 2004 02:05:24 PM new
This is too bizarre!
A friend of mine at work, Faye (not real name) had previously dated Harry (not real name). Harry had broken into her home 3 times, she changed the locks 3 times. Not wanting to make trouble. She was nice to him when in public. He would grab her by the hair, in public. He was decent sober, and not decent drunk.
She finally wised up and had him served a "PFA" (?). He was given it last night.
After receiving it, he went to her house, broke down her door, grabbed her and her daughter by the hair (ripping hair out) and threatened to shoot her and her children.
Someone called the police (little fuzzy on details). At some point in time, he called his previous girlfriend, told her he was burning down his house so she wouldn't get it (which he did and also shot up his truck).
posted on December 7, 2004 02:15:45 PM new
Nero...this is the God's honest truth!
I was so upset.. and all the other girls acted like it was my fault.. everything was whispers and a lot of motion.. then sometime later the Coroner's van pulled up to the side entrance of the home..
I felt sick to my stomach..!
A murderer at such a young age...
This nursing home was a converted Victorian style home.. I'll never forget it.. He was in a tiny dark room on the second floor..
I can still see his bone thin face with his mouth and eyes wide open on that pillow..
Maggie
Don't understand what you mean by nursing homes at my age of 12?
[ edited by maggiemuggins on Dec 7, 2004 02:18 PM ]
posted on December 7, 2004 02:40:14 PM new
lol, maggie, you poor thing! :;wisper,wisper:: - "She went up there and he died!!"
This nursing home was a converted Victorian style home...
That must be the one kirta and her egging poltergists live in now! I know she'll be going up and down the stairs with her chains like jacob marley (or would that be with clanking vacumn cleaner accessories?)lol!
"oo,oo,oo, scrooge dont do as I have done. dont carry these bags full o dirt, these chains of judge-MENTALITY through eternity..ooo, o,o, ooooaaaa'..
posted on December 7, 2004 02:43:48 PM new
Sheesh.. Nero.. I guess I have joked once to often here.. now when I want to be serious.. no one believes me! Maggie
posted on December 7, 2004 02:55:41 PM new
Maggie, Twelve said you were in your 70's so my post was meant to poke fun at that.
If that really happened, it's probably not guilt but more of the shock from someone dying in front of you at such an early age. It was a nursing home afterall.
posted on December 7, 2004 03:04:35 PM new
I started to post a dancing santa but I guess you are really serious. I still feel guilty about a lawn mower accident when I was about 12. My younger sister was hanging onto a push mower...the kind that doesn't have a motor. She wouldn't let go of the bar so I jerked the mower, her hand slipped and one of her thumbs was cut off. A doctor was able to sew it back on but I still feel guilty and think about that occassionally.
So, I can understand how you feel...even though it wasn't your fault!
posted on December 7, 2004 04:03:44 PM new
No, Krafty, I'm not in my 70's..LOL.. no where near my 70's..! I think I posted that in a thread where Yellow and a few others were talking about everyone's boobs here on the RT... and I wanted to freak them out by saying they were fantasizing about a 70 year olds' boobs..
This actually happened to me. I have a friend who was also at the Christmas party that year and she still jokes about me killing the old man...
When I think about it.. that was kind of a stupid thing for them to have us do.. old people can frighten so easily.. I can't help feeling guilty.. thank God he didn't scream, that would have made it worse!
Helen, that is awful.. how did your family handle it? Did they blame you or did they realize that it was just an accident.. You poor thing, I bet you were so frightened!
posted on December 7, 2004 05:34:05 PM new
It's too late Maggie, whenever I see your posts I will allways picture you as being a 70 year old.
------------------
True story, not a joke.
Not the same thing but I think it's the exact opposite. When I was 15 I was swimming in the pool at the apartment complex we lived at. I was the only one in the pool and this family was at the clubhouse that was near the pool.
They had a young boy that was 3 years old and he got away from them without them noticing and he fell into the pool. I heard a splash behind me and when I turned around I didn't immediately see anything or anyone but then I noticed a dark shape under the water about 6 feet away from me.
I swam over and saw this kid under the water and he was flailing about and sinking. I dove under and grabbed him by the leg and flung him out of the pool. He was ok, in fact he started crying shortly after.
About the same time the kids family came running over and they actually had the audacity to accuse me of pulling the kid in, not realising that I had actually saved the kids life and had nothing to do with him being in the pool in the first place.
I pleaded with them to understand what had actually happened but they threatened me with calling the police. Being the dumb kid that I was myself I just let it go and they dropped the matter.
What I think must have happened in their minds was that they were so in shock that they had lost track of their kid and that he could have drowned and so they just lashed out and immediately accused me, rather than acknowledging that it was their fault to let their kid get away from them so near a swimming pool.
I was so pisssed at the time but I realised years later, thinking about it that as James Dean once said, "us hero's know who we are" and that's enough.
posted on December 7, 2004 05:47:47 PM new
Anyways, Maggie, I think that you shouldn't feel guilty about it, afterall, your intentions were good, you were young and didn't realise what would happen in the first place.
posted on December 7, 2004 06:33:10 PM new
Several years ago a friend of mine's Grandson was dating the daughter of her best friend. The daughter and grandson were going around a curve in her car when she threw her cigarette out the window and the ashes blew back in her eyes,blinding her and she flipped the car 5 times at a high rate of speed. The grandson lived through the accident,she was killed instantly. At the funeral the Best friend just keep screaming at my friend that it was all her fault that her daughter was death because she was with her grandson. Sometimes things like that happen, I would say it was probably the old man's time to go anyhow. You don't know he may of died a day or two later. Most people in a Nursing home die all of a sudden,my Dad did.
**********************************
Two men sit behind bars,one sees mud the other sees stars.
posted on December 7, 2004 07:11:07 PM new
Maggie: Don't take on a guilt trip. This was no fault of yours at all.
Early this year, my son-in-law took his father and mother to the vet hospital where his father was being treated for MS. His father was in really bad shape for a long time and in a wheel chair. His mother was in perfect health. He dropped them off at the door and went to find a parking place. His mother was pushing his dad in his wheel chair through the lobby when she collapsed and died on the spot. His father is still living.
posted on December 7, 2004 07:59:45 PM new
The baggage we carry around with us...is something else, isn't it.. The shock may have taken his life... but it altered mine as well....
Helen.. where did your dancing Santa go? LOL
I like that little fellow! As sad as it was with the old fellow passing on and as devastated as I felt then.. after all these years.. I can see the twisted humor in the situation as well... Like Nero said.. it sounds like something from a bad movie..LOL
That reminds me of something..I read sometime ago.. when we laugh at someone who takes a slip on a banana peel and falls on their ass.. or trips on a step .. that kind of thing.. it isn't that we are laughing at the misfortune of that person, but we laugh in joy that it isn't happening to ourselves... does that make sense.. ?? Or did I just make that up? LOL
posted on December 7, 2004 08:26:02 PM new
Maggie, I removed the Santa when I realized that you were serious. I'm very sorry that I misunderstood. What a traumatic experience at such a young age!
posted on December 7, 2004 10:13:18 PM new
Helen, I liked your dancing Santa!
He isn't creepy like the dancing baby, sheesh.. that one used to creep me out.. gave me the creepy crawly willies to watch it! LOL..
Maggie
My mama she once told me Hey, don't you fall for any man Just take what they may give you And give but what you can
[ edited by maggiemuggins on Dec 7, 2004 10:14 PM ]
posted on December 8, 2004 12:25:27 AM new
Maggie says, "That reminds me of something..I read sometime ago.. when we laugh at someone who takes a slip on a banana peel and falls on their ass.. or trips on a step .. that kind of thing.. it isn't that we are laughing at the misfortune of that person, but we laugh in joy that it isn't happening to ourselves... does that make sense.. ?? Or did I just make that up? LOL""
You made that up! We are laughing because it's FUNNY, looks funny, is funny...can't help it we're human and it's just funny!
I agree about the dancing baby which looked dead to me and I never could understand the attraction of a dead dancing baby......I couldn't even look at it....
Maggie,about the OP, I apologize because I thought you were telling a joke at first and now I realize it was serious to you. So now I'm trying to be sympathetic....and not laugh...I'm so sorry , I am a horse's butt but (choke, snicker),,.I feel so badly for your...(snicker)...experience....oh, I know you'll hate me but(hee hee)(oh, maggie I had too much Windsor) please don't take it so seriously...if Santa Claus could kill him it just was his karma....or something.I haven't felt guilty about anything in 40 years that wasn't my fault, I refuse to do so.......it WASN'T YOUR FAULT.....so give yourself a break...just don't visit my mother in your Santa suit....
Maggie
