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Comment by oldstrangers | Hacker News Reader

No one probably wants to hear this but my partner's grandmother was in hospice. Her grandmother had so much anxiety about dying (she was in her late 90s) that the hospice just kept her doped up with morphine 24/7 (this is a lot more common than you'd imagine). When she was sober enough to realize what was happening she'd just scream.

Anyway, that really did a number on me for the next few months. Seeing someone so distraught having reached the end of their life, clearly unhappy with everything that had led up to that point, unable to really accept that this was the end. Was profoundly depressing but also extremely motivating to not waste my time on things I'm not happy with.

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“At the end of our life our questions are simple: Did I live fully? Did I love well?”

— Jack Kornfield

This is reductive in that it implies if the answers are yes you won’t be the one sitting in bed screaming or drugged up.

I’ve seen this situation enough (whole family works in hospice) to know it’s not the case.

Do the best you can, but at the end of the day you either go super fast or it’s super scary and often painful. Drugs help.

> This is reductive

> at the end of the day you either go super fast or it’s super scary

Ironically, I find this statement reductive and unnuanced, not the Jack Kornfield quote.

You have no idea how the people you observed screaming in fear lived and loved in their lives.

In that moment, I also don’t really care how they did. It has absolutely nothing to do with how they end up passing, the pain they’re feeling or the level of stress they’re under. To suggest otherwise is crazy and disrespectful.

I have been inculcated to ask those questions, yet I don’t even know the answer nor how to answer, let alone how to do it.

Don't worry about it. Who cares about that final 1% of your life. Why is all important that we model all our life around the thoughts in in that final 1%. Your brain prably isn't working that well anyways to have some sort of profound transcendal thoughts. Most ppl just thinking about mostly nothing in particular.

For me, the answer to those questions lies in my relationships. Even the ones that go sour: did you love well? Did you have a lot of quality time with them?

Realize that every relationship (family, friends, lovers, spouses) ends in separation. Every one, whether through estrangement or death. And that is natural and normal. Not depressing. Just is.

Why do you think anyone spends their time doped up on opiates? It's not like any of us isn't going to die relatively soon and we all know it.

> , clearly unhappy with everything that had led up to that point

Did she express as much when she the bouts of anxiety. Curious to hear what specifically about her life that gave her so much anxiety about it ending.

Too late now, but this sure does sound like what cryonics is for.

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