She had decided, she told us last week, to drive up to Sudbury again to visit with her parents.  It's a long drive, about nine hours' worth and exhausting.  This time she asked her daughter to accompany her, along with her two grandsons, aged 9 and 7.  The younger of the two boys complained about the boredom of the never-ending drive.  They were told this would likely be the last such trip; in all likelihood those they were visiting weren't long for this world.  That hardly mollified the boys, they wouldn't like the interpretation, its implied finality and grim, fearful mystery.

Because her parents lived in a small apartment, with room enough for her to sleep over when she visited solo, she had made reservations for all of them to stay over at a nearby hotel, to make things more practical, more comfortable for everyone involved.  The boys liked staying over at a hotel.  And she knew, that though her parents enjoyed having the boys around that enjoyment would pall if they were exposed to the boys' exuberant behaviour for more prolonged, uninterrupted periods of time.  It just worked out better that way.

And it was true, she didn't expect them to live much longer.  She wanted her daughter and her grandchildren to have a memory of the two old people, her own parents.  Her father was 82, in very poor health.  What seemed to keep him going was his love of walking, and he was hardly able now to do much of that.  When she visited she accompanied him on his walks in nearby parks, and they shared rambling reminiscences. 

He'd been a heavy drinker all his life, though not an alcoholic, and smoked heavily as well.  His heart was in fragile shape, and he had a slow-acting cancer that couldn't be operated on because of his heart condition.  So it was a matter of time.  His doctors had informed him he could simply go at any time, with no particular advance warning.  Her mother was in little better shape herself.  She wouldn't survive the death of her husband for very long.

So she was glad she interrupted her busy schedule and convinced her daughter to accompany her with the two boys.  Just one of life's inevitable conclusions to a long life replete with its various satisfactions.