• thepreciousboar@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    That matches my experience. My great aunt lost her husband 15 years ago, but kept going strong and relatively healthy up until 92, then her last sister died (quite unexpectedly) and her health started visibly deteriorating.

    After a long hospitalization she got back home, but couldn’t walk anymore. We were prepared to a long recovery, but after some promising days, as you said, she ate and talked less every day that passed, at one point she actively refused to eat and drink and just laid in bad. The last day or two she made noises and laments, but was basically unresponsive, with audible stops in breathing that increased as time got along. The only moments of lucidity were when she needed to go to the bathroom (absolutely physically unable to). We believed it was mostly for pride over wearing diapers and to have a last glimpse on independance.

    Then she died and we all agreed at some point she just refused to live on, too old and too alone to handle the world. I wonder how much was a concious decision and how much a simple reduction in self preservation (maybe an automatic response of the body when getting to a real old age? I don’t know).

    Anyway, our biggest relief was that we could bring her home, so she died in peace surrounded by family.