First of all, in some ways to be a child was sort of to be at best like a pet (if you were taken care of well that is). Because just like now many children were not cared for at all and died or died from abuse of many kinds that was usually hidden from other adults who might protect these children from abuse.
I was one of the lucky ones who had decent parents but I also met many people falling through the cracks of the world then and either dying or going crazy or being maimed in various ways.
So, I was where the rubber meets the world and saw a lot of sickness and death both mental, physical and emotional among the children I grew up with.
Even in church I watched people die a lot because they didn't believe in doctors then or they believed their body was too Sacred to go to a doctor and only God should heal them. That's probably the best way to put it. So, I saw people die at literally every age from birth to 10s to 20s to 30s to 40s and beyond.
For example, many people died just from not wearing seat belts in cars. In fact I remember one open air car killed about 15 kids when they hit something going around 100 mph on a street and the bodies were catapulted hundreds of feet before they died. And I also saw personally more than one fatality on motorcycles. One particular one hit me hard because I was only 10 then and the boy driving the motorcycle had a head injury and was unconscious and she was crying holding his head wishing he would wake up again. But, I think his neck was broken so he was gone.
another time we were driving from Glendale to Malibu in California on the Ventura Freeway when I saw a carload of people (likely a whole family of 5 or more people flying over our car because it had been coming the other direction on the freeway and the car was flying over our heads and people were screaming in this large stationwagon. I said to my father because I was 8 years old at the time: "We need to go help those people!" And my father understanding that none of them would survive because they were going 70 miles per hour and going to hit people going 70 mph the other direction behind us. So, not only were they all going to die everyone that hit them would likely die too at 140 mph collision of both directions.
But, I was too young to understand that then so he simply said, "There's too much traffic for us to go back and help them. If we stop we will be hit by cars behind us." At the time I was troubled by this but understood that much.
So, whether it was church or being beat to death by other adults in their families or strangers on the street which happened a lot then too, children died a lot between especially birth and 20 years old whereas most of the deaths from 20 to 30 (like now) are some form of suicide either direct or indirect from taking too many risks in life and this taking them out directly or indirectly.
But, percentage wise, growing up in the 1950s and 1960s it was definitely a killing field everywhere I looked and this changed us all a lot. It made me much more cautious and not wanting to be just another gravestone.
Then also then I was told I would die in a nuclear war as a soldier which I think i somewhat believed until I was 14 or 15 years old when I started to have hope for a better life. Though one of my male cousins joined the Navy so he wouldn't be drafted into the Army and die in the Viet Nam War my other cousin went to USC on a Scholarship and then NYU Law School and become and excellent lawyer. So, my cousin who went to USC gave me hope and encouraged me to go to college because most people in the family had not been to college then except one of my aunts and one of my female cousins.
So, being encouraged to go to college was one of the best things that ever happened to me and is one of many reasons why I'm still alive now at age 75.
By God's Grace
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