Elderly people dying doesn't upset me, is this normal?

No it's not being calloused. If you worked in the kitchen, you probably got to see the residents and recognize them in different places on a regular basis...........but you probably didn't have a close one on one relationship with them. If thats the case, then it would be normal for you to feel as if they had just moved on to assisted living. It's because you had made no emotional connection with those people....they were just residents to you. You probably didn't know their children and their grandchildren and their spouse if they had one.....you didn't know how long they'd been married and how much a loaf of bread was when they were 19, etc. etc. The more you bond and connect with the residents, the more they will cease to become 'residents' and start to become friends......and that's when you will feel more affected by the loss of that person......

Note to flywho: I take extreme offense to your generalizing and stereotyping funeral homes! Because of a few bad ones, you are judging all to be the same. It was a wrong and very unfair comment to make!!

Your reaction is very normal. You are seeing death in the abstract of just a part of life. Unless you are attached to someone it can't affect you in the same way. I work in a restaurant and we lose a few of our customers every year, sometimes, monthly. We miss them a few are more missed. We interact with them . We meet their families. If we took every death to heart, we would not be able to function. You don't sound callous. If you were callous, you would not have even asked this question.

It is probably normal. You probably don't get personall attached to these people and like you say you know that the possibility of thier passing is high so you expect it.

You also realize that many of these people may be in bad health and sometimes it is a relief for them.

People who work around death have to be able to handle it or learn to handle it or it would drive them crazy.

I don't think you are callous. I don't personally know you though.

Have you ever lost a parent or someone close to you then it is quite different. But casual acquaintances I would probably feel the same. I believe that the next life is better so I am not afraid to move on.

Elderly people dying doesn't bother me, either ... but I still occasionally cry when it was someone I admired deeply, or someone who brought me happiness or brought my family together for good times ... but they aren't SAD tears, either ... they are HAPPY TEARS for the person who died and is going to Heaven, and only a bit of sadness for me, since I know I am going to die and go to Heaven, too, someday. WE ALL ARE GOING TO HEAVEN, the believers and the atheists, the good and the evil (who may have to do some time in Purgatory/Hell but that's like 'summer school' so they can do what it is God created our universe to 'teach us' to do THERE. I'm waiting for the 'rest of the story' and I don't cry if I know that the person is HAPPY ... for me or for them ... I may cry for 'memory' but not for the PERSON. Think about this ... you aren't callous, but caring ... and if you don't get upset, so what? You went to work, you did your job, and you kept doing that NO MATTER WHAT and THAT counts for A LOT in this world of ours.

WOW -

You are way ahead of MOST humans with your 'view' of death -

our thinking/feeling species is programmed and conditioned to see the "dying reality" of all life in such morbid, destructive terms! and here you come along - sounding like a much more balanced person than most - expressing a lovely alternative to the gut wrenching formalities of loss . . .

Good for you - keep spreading your 'truth' - some will have to benefit from your sharing . . . Thanx

To me you simply seem accepting of death, which is a part of nature. Many people can not handle the fact that people die and would neve want to work around elderly people. I commed you for helping to make the lives of the elderly more pleasant. I would encourage you to continue working in an environment helping senior, not everyone is cut out for a profession in that field.

I have worked in nursing homes, assisted living and hospice. It is a very good way to react, if we grieved over each and everyone we would never be able to do our jobs.there must be some detachment, I remember when my first client died, and it was tough but I learned to accept.

I think it is because you sort of expected it to happen, I would say it was abnormal if you were glad they died, but you know they are going to be in a better place, and I think by working around elderly you get conditioned to losing them

Totally and refreshingly normal!

Overplaying the 'tragedy' of an elderly person dying is the realm of funeral homes (that earn their living by playing on the survivor's guilt and selling expensive caskets to house rotting bones in).

Perhaps without even realizing it, you are living the natural and joyful awareness that everything is a cycle of life and death. To tragedize a natural death is utter nonsense.

Congratulations on your healthy attitude.