"...my mother told me she thought he’d known he was having heart attacks but chose to ignore them as a way of killing himself. This, I think, is putting an overly heroic sheen on it, but the interpretation doesn’t surprise me. My mother worshiped my father, and there’s something noble about a slow, plausibly deniable suicide. "

I find it to be an extreme form of cowardice. I had a couple of close family members who always used to 'emotionally blackmail' when something wasn't how they wanted it. And it wasn't manipulation - they genuinely suffered. It was horrible. Like an inescapable black cloud. My uncle did it for so long, ignored his health issues on purpose that he eventually died. He wasn't even too old. I don't even remember exact cause, but it was something simple, couple of days in hospital and some pills would have made it go away. I had similar inclinations, but adopting stoicism helped me curb it.