Dying May Be Easier Than Talking To Your Family About Dying

The New York Times has been following a small group of vitally engaged people over 85 since 2015. Now, only one of them is left.

For the elders and their families in the Times series, the deaths were all different, the emotional preparations even more so. None were what anyone had hoped. As predictable as death in old age has become, families still have little guidance for the last stretch of life.

Fred Jones died just days after one of his daughters died, in April 2016; John Sorensen, who said on every visit that he wanted to die, died in June that year, missing his partner of 60 years. Jonas died with finished manuscripts around him; Ping Wong had a stroke and refused her daughter’s entreaties to eat; Helen Moses closed her eyes in early December and never opened them again, dying five days later, a talkative woman reduced to silence.

The one left is Ruth Willig, age 96.

Finally, she said, “I’m ready, I am. But I worry about my children. They’re so devoted to me. It scares me.”

It is one of the most vexing chapters of old age: how to navigate not just the inevitable ending, but the days and months immediately before it. As the bonds of support and dependency change, how do we tell our children that it is O.K. to say goodbye? And how do we tell our parents that it is O.K. to go?

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The vocabulary of loss and grief, which can bloom into eloquence after someone’s death, is of no use in the weeks or months leading up to it. Instead, there is language suited to war: the battle against illness or refusal to quit, the heroic struggle whose linguistic alternative is failure or giving up.