Ohhhh you express it so well - even if a loved one is almost age 100, it's hard to let them go.
And this!
"When you live on the other side of the world, far away from your family, every time you see someone, you know it may be the last time you see him/her. You know it, and yet, when it turns out to be true, it’s still so hard to believe."
Sharing this via Facebook and Twitter.
Lost one grandpa when I was age 5, the other at age 12.
Now my dad is 89 and fading away.
He and my mom have buried three daughters... 3 outta 5 ...
The first one may have died swiftly (we hope) but for four months she was missing, and the Not Knowing is worse than knowing. We are actually fortunate that her body was found. Too many other cold cases go on for decades with no body ever found....
Second sister battled leukemia for 27 years (more than half her life), and the last five years were brutal, on dialysis, and watching her become bedridden...
The third one fought a horrific and painful battle with stomach cancer. It lasted for months.
Now our dad has been staying alive long beyond what anyone might expect, and I wonder why some people last so long when death would be a release from their suffering.
A friend told me he is terrible at condolences. When his classmate's dad dropped dead suddenly and unexpectedly, Andy said, "That lucky SOB," because the father did not suffer that long, painful demise. I assured him I too might have said something as shocking as that... we can be careless with words....

But you, @boxcarblue, have a way with words, as you already know, and I'm confident your spoken words are also thoughtful (not blurted out the way mine all too often are).