A lot of you are my parents age, can I just say please look after ytourseves and don’t die for a while. I’m so cross at my dad that died 3 years ago today (well yesterday now), I thought we had lots of years ahead of us and part of our plans here included rooms / bathrooms for him and my MIL.
So please don’t go and die 
My dad went a year earlier than yours, too early as you say, lots of things have happened since that i would have liked to have shared with him. He was the only one who came to France to see us !
Nice and generous thoughtsTorey. It must be sad to lose your parents when they are still ‘young’.
I am glad to know there will be little or no grieving at my demise in the next few years or so.
We’re doing our best not to let you down Tory, but sometimes it seems like a bit of an uphill struggle. 
But even for you I don’t want to hang on as long as my Dad did at 94, his last years with dementia are not something I want to experience. ;-(
Yes - it’s about quality of life, isn’t it? The mere fact of being alive is secondary.
Not planning on it anytime soon, but who knows when the grim reaper will come a’knocking:astonished:
Absolutely correct! Most of us in our 80’s I would guess(?) would agree with you. It seems to me the most logical thing in the world to be able to call ‘time’ on our lives when the quality becomes insupportable - or even before. It is probably easy for me to say as I have neither children, relatives or that many friends if any) who would be affected by my demise. However I would imagine that a family watching the deterioration and/or suffering of an elderly relative would be appalling.
I truly believe we should all have the ‘right’ (even a duty?) to call a halt when life offers us nothing and our nearest and dearest even less.
@toryroo 
I will be happy to reach 70 five from of seven of my immediate family died between the ages of 23 and 69. My brother will be 74 this year Woohoo!!
Keep well
I am 73 and my Dad died when I was 13, but I still remember the date he died and his birthday.
We have some of the paintings he did just before he died and they are in our hall, so he is partly with us.
It gets easier, but it takes a long time.
Take care and we are doing the same thing here in Trivy. I hardly go out and we have a very small circle of friends we have meals with.
We have not been to a restaurant since the end of February.
I think we would all be sad by your demise Norman, don’t go anywhere yet !
Planning NOT to go too early. Thank God my family tends to live to ripe old ages (some late 80’s up to 100) - so chances are I’ll be around for awhile yet.
Covid is not going to get me either - doing everything I can to avoid crowds, people that don’t wear masks (unless I know them very well) and have started ‘air kisses’ even with close friends.
But when my time comes, my life has been good and I will not have many regrets!
Don’t be cross Tory, I’m sure he wouldn’t want you to be cross. If I was him I’d want you remember all the good times we did have together and not to dwell too much on all the good times we might have had.
Tory, thanks for a touching and thought provoking post. I’ll do my best to carry on, well sort of at any rate…
My father died of bowel cancer when he was only thirty-nine years old and I was eight. In later years I attributed his condition to a Depression era diet and his years in Burma during WWII. By contrast, my mother and both in-laws made it into their mid-nineties without losing their wits or being confined to care homes.
Today, I compare the far superior physical condition of OH et moi to that of our parents and wonder if we’ll simply live longer, or barring accidents, hopefully live much more actively for longer.
Norman - you might be surprised at the number of people who would miss you - never under-estimate yourself.
I’m sure there would be many on here who would miss you and your comments.
I have read quite a few books on French social history so don’t have the reference to hand. Apparently in the old days in rural France, an ailing aged parent would take often take to their bed to die. This was because the rest of the family would be occupied in farm subsistence work and simply could not afford time nor energy to look after their infirm relative. The parent recognised their time had come and that was that.
Thank for that genuinely surprising- even flattering reply! Hard to believe, but nice to hear.
Mark it is always interesting to compare generations and lifestyles, and sometimes to be surprised when doing so. I was born in 1940 and my brother in 1937, so we were brought up on wartime rations essentially, augmented I have to admit by my mother getting a job in a school canteen, and bringing home supplementary meat and veges in jamjars - although that really didn’affect me until after the War, but as many would recall rationing lasted long after the War ended.
Yet we were by far the biggest generation born. My brother grew to 6’6" and I staggered finally to 6’1" and was almost the smallest of our group. Before the War life expectancy for working class males was under 70 years of age, but apart from accidental deaths and the incredible amount of childhood ailments surrounding us also causing death - measles,polio, rickets, influenza, TB, infantile paralysis, all of which took very young friends, those of us who survived have lived to ripe old ages, which seems odd? Darwinian?
I was told that my purported father also lived to his mid-90s, and my mother finally succumbed to cancer at age 86, so one has to believe in the gene pool more than anything else in my opinion, but with increased health care along the way as a contributing factor. The odds certainly seemed against us when and where we were born.
Peter, that is a very kind thing to say. I often think that I am regarded (correctly) as a pain the posterior with my prognostications. My wife is my source for the comment, and she should know?