Do our "Oldies" Know When It's Time??

I believe so. Both my grandparents, who raised me from a toddler, knew when they had had enough of this world. I can still recall both instances as clearly as if it happened yesterday.
My grandmother was first to go. Nan was a pillar of strength and remained so until that fatal day. I can still picture her in her high-necked, long dresses with lace around the collar. She was a wonderful cook and, because I wouldn't eat enough which caused a mild case of malnutrition (which was my fault and my fault alone), Nan would cook and bake the most wonderful things to tempt me into eating. And Pop kept this going right up to the day he was taken to hospital.
The morning Nan died started as usual with breakfast and laughs around the kitchen table. I think I was about 6 at the time, but I can still remember that lovely smile that Nan had. After breakfast things got funny. Nan asked me to go back to bed, not in my own, but her and Pop's bed. She wound up the old record player with the huge brass horn and put on one of my favourites, which I think was a fairy tale or something. This is really the only thing that is not too clear. She then gave me my stamp album and asked me to study the world stamps, kissed me and said "See you soon Jim." Nan and Pop both called me Jim. She left the room and some time later I heard a lot of people coming and going, so I got up and went to the kitchen to have a sticky beak at what was happening. I reached the kitchen just as they carried Nan in. I still remember her "granny knickers" around her ankles and the grey look of her face. She had been in the outside toilet and had a heart attack. They told me later that she died instantly. I suppose I was too young at time for it to sink in completely, but all I remember was a great feeling of loss but I couldn't understand why. I was sent home to Mum and no-one tried to tell me what had happened. It wasn't until Pop sat down with me that evening and told me what had happened that I finally understood that Nan wouldn't be coming home. It was devastating to say the least.
Life went on with Pop being my principle carer, although I did spend a little time at home with Mum and the other kids, but apparently that didn't work out too well and I was soon back where I belonged - with Pop.
He was a giant of a man!! Well over 6 ft tall, in his 70's and not a grey hair in his full head of hair and not an ounce of fat on him.
I well remember him working in his garden, both vegetables and flowers. The garden at the back of our place wasn't big enough for everything he wanted to grow, so he was kindly allowed by our neighbour, Mrs White, to use a vacant plot at the rear of her place. We used to get there by climbing an old style over the fence. Pop grew everything possible!! From potatoes, tomatoes, beans, asparagus, artichokes, beetroot, cabbages, carrots, parsnips and everything else you could possibly grow in the Tasmanian climate. There were also heaps of grapes growing along the dividing fence and about a half dozen varieties of plums.
Pop also kept chooks and I still remember how many handfuls of wheat I used to feed them every now and then, when I was allowed. On Friday evenings I used to take the eggs that Pop had wrapped in threes in newspaper around the neighbourhood to sell. They were all regular customers so Pop knew how to wrap the eggs for each person.
On weekdays I can still remember Pop standing at the front gate watching me walk up the hill to go to school, and he was there also when I was coming home. I often wondered if he stood there all day!!!
Around Mother's Day, Pop would pick his wonderful chrysanthemums and I would also take them around to sell.  On Mother's Day we always visited Nan at the cemetery and put white chrysanthemums on her grave. He would tell me then that that was where he would go soon!!!!
Every Saturday Pop would take me to the matinee at the pictures where I would swap comics with other kids there. Then, Saturday night, he would always cook me steak and vegetables for tea. Today I often wonder how he afforded all these things he spoilt me with on the old age pension.
The fatal day was on a Saturday. We got home from the pictures and had tea and he was just serving up bread and butter custard for dessert, (I have never eaten bread and butter custard since!!!), when he suddenly sat down on the settee in the kitchen and asked for a cup of hot water. When I got that for him he told me to run next door and get Mr Robinson, which I did. An ambulance arrived and he was whisked away to hospital, which was only about half a mile from home. I went to Mum's place and was not told anything at all about how Pop was.
On Sunday afternoon Mum took me to the hospital to see Pop and I can still see him lying in the bed with his feet raised. He asked Mum, "Poll. Cover my feet please. They are cold". They were covered all the time!!! When it was time to go Mum lifted me up to kiss Pop good-night, and he said "See you soon Jim", but didn't seem to want to let me go.
I was in the bath that night when Dad walked into the bathroom and said "He's gone son". I don't remember what really happened then, but Dad told me later that I put my head under the bath water and possibly tried to drown myself. I survived, even if broken hearted. I was 11 at the time.
A major part of life had gone with both Nan and Pop gone. Their deaths seemed to take everything out of my will to exist and it took a long time for me to accept that fact.
Mum stood with me at the top of Galvin Street to watch the funeral go along Wellington Street and then it seemed just like a bad dream and that I would walk into Pop and Nan's place and they would be there. BUT THEY WEREN'T!!! And I had to move back to Mum's house where I felt very uncomfortable for a long time. That's why I joined the Navy at age 15.
Life must go on but I often think back on those days and hope that I will have the courage to face death with dignity when my time comes, just like my dearest and beloved best friends did - Nan and Pop.