Feeling a bit emotional tonight.
One of my granddads passed away from cancer in his mid 70s. He was fit and healthy, so the diagnosis shocked us all and it was a pretty awful couple of years watching him decline and pass away. However, he had many family and friends come to visit him, he stayed pretty mentally present until the end and his funeral was enormous - over a hundred people. He was well loved and well known in his local area. Most of his care was done by my grandma, his wife, and he died at home.
My other granddad passed away just after Christmas aged 95. He stayed in his house until he was 91 and way past being able to manage it, and his final years were spent between hospital and care facilities, worrying about my gran who has dementia and generally in pain. All bar one or two friends had long passed away, so few visitors, just his small family. He died in hospital fairly suddenly without any of us present 😢 his wife not there as it would’ve distressed her. His funeral was very small. He was such a proud man with such an interesting life and career, it makes me sad to think how few people were still alive to remember him at the end.
I don’t really know what I want from this thread, I guess it’s cathartic to write it down and cheaper than therapy! While illness and death is never pleasant, am I wrong to think that, in general, we’re actually making the end of our lives worse by living for too long?