A few years before my grandfather died, without knowing it was going to happen, he told me about how there were so many things he never got the chance to do - but that he felt like he got to do enough to be happy.

He was almost 90 when medical complications got the better of him.

"What are you doing with that hammer!?"

My mom had just married my stepdad and I was around 7 years old. I would have to go to his mom and dad's house before school since my mom had just started working again. His dad was dying and on oxygen. He was pretty much bed ridden at that point. He called me into his room and asked me just to come in there to say hello whenever I came over. He didn't last much longer after that, but he still wanted to see me even though he had barely known me.

Not to me, but to my mum. When my dad died, he'd been ill with cancer for a few months, and in the final few days it spread to his brain, and he became essentially unable to communicate in any meaningful way.

However when it was clear we were in his final few minutes (his breathing made it obvious he was almost gone) my mum said to him that she loved him, and although he couldn't form words, he managed to make sounds that, although not words, were clearly the correct syllables and emphasis for "I love you". It was amazing, and meant so much.

My grandmother told me that if she could offer me one piece of advice it would be to stop worrying about the world, stop worrying about the future. If your thoughts are always there, they're never here and you just wake up one morning realizing how much time has disappeared.

She told me to just enjoy my life, every moment.

My mum acknowledged my mental illness would mean I would never succeed in life.

Where's the cheese?

She wanted cheese with her biscuits the night before she died. I think these might have been her last words to me, eleven years ago.

I fetched the cheese.

Hold on tight together!

My gandad wrote this because he could not speak

"This is my favourite Indian restaurant." It has always been my favourite too. I think of John every time I go there. He was old, but passed away suddenly.

It's weird how the strangest things like this stick with you.

"Arf arf arf arf arf!" ~ My dog

I've sat through a lot of deaths but never really witnessed the dying moments up close aside from pets.

excessively trivial things

Not to me, but my grandma told grandpa they should take their t-shirts and go home. Not sure when she said it, either, but I sure do miss her.

“Never grow old”

My grandfather :’(

Wished they hadn’t worked so much.

There's a book which can be a hard read that you might appreciate. The Top Five Regrets of the Dying