Time Flies On Vulture's Wings
Nov. 7th, 2022 09:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anna_wingLast week I went to the funeral of a friend of some fifteen years. He was 100, so he was a small part of my life, and I was a tiny part of his. But size and significance aren't the same things. We were fond of each other. He was a cantankerous old buzzard, who had outlived his friends and two of his three children. Also his enemies, as I would remind him when he complained again about how he had been done wrong in his career fifty years ago. He never accepted my offer to take him to the cemetery so he could do a little shuffle over their graves, but he appreciated it.
Luckily, this being Asia, he had his surviving daughter and her family, and his younger sister (88) and her family to keep an eye on him, and he was reasonably well-off, so money was not an issue. I'm friends with them, too. He died peacefully in hospital of a chest infection. When I saw her later, his sister observed and I rather agree, that it's better to die in a (good) hospital, rather than at home. Hospitals are clean and organised, there are people to look after you who actually know what they're doing, and post mortem arrangements are easier to deal with for the family. I know there's a lot of sentimental attachment to the idea of dying at home surrounded by your loved ones, but I do see her point.
Luckily, this being Asia, he had his surviving daughter and her family, and his younger sister (88) and her family to keep an eye on him, and he was reasonably well-off, so money was not an issue. I'm friends with them, too. He died peacefully in hospital of a chest infection. When I saw her later, his sister observed and I rather agree, that it's better to die in a (good) hospital, rather than at home. Hospitals are clean and organised, there are people to look after you who actually know what they're doing, and post mortem arrangements are easier to deal with for the family. I know there's a lot of sentimental attachment to the idea of dying at home surrounded by your loved ones, but I do see her point.
