My parents never made it to old age and though I miss them every day, I’m glad they went when they did. It means my last memory of them is a good one. Not for me and my siblings the aching agony of watching a long slow decline or having to face complex care decisions as we watched our parents shrink before our eyes into shadows of their former selves. I didn’t want that for them and I know for certain they didn’t want it for us.

When my mum had a massive stroke a week before her 74th birthday we were warned the prognosis was not good. She no longer recognised us and as we stood around her bed, I thought, please die. Don’t linger on in pain, fed by a tube not knowing who any of us are. That may sound cruel, heartless even. But it’s the very opposite of that. I knew she wouldn’t want to be kept alive by machines. I wanted to remember her how she was; sound of mind, quick witted, doing crosswords every day and following her beloved Arsenal.

I still miss our regular phone calls. I long to tell her things, ask her advice.

But once she was felled by a vicious stroke and could never be returned to us, I saw no point in her lingering on. I knew she wouldn’t want that. Shortly afterwards, she died surrounded by her family.

She had a good death, just falling asleep for ever. Never underestimate what a wonderful thing that is.

We drank champagne at her funeral because long before her stroke she’d left specific instructions for us to celebrate her life, not mourn her passing. And she loved champagne. I think of her every time I have a glass of bubbly and I raise it to her and the fabulous example she set me to live life as well as I could. I see her every day when I look in the mirror as we look so alike. She’s with me all the time. I am so blessed that I can remember her how she was. How she will always be to me.

Dad died two years before mum went, from a burst ulcer no one knew he had. He was only 70. I say only 70 as these days that seems rather young to die. I’m not much more than a decade from that age myself, yet I am fighting fit and very healthy. But my dad never enjoyed good health so we had always assumed he would face a long, slow death. It was not to be and I’m so glad he had the death he wanted, dying in the family home with my mother, his wife of 42 years, by his side.

It may sound cold, calculating even, but not having to sell the family home to pay for residential care as so many now have to do was such a relief. Not, as you may be presuming, because we wanted our inheritance. This was the mid-1990s and houses weren’t worth that much then and, besides, we all had our own homes anyway. No it was because my parents would have hated going into care. And although we didn’t need it, it mattered to them that they left us something. In fact, we’d have much preferred them to sell up and go into sheltered housing and often suggested it. But they wouldn’t hear of it. The house was for us.

Grief is complex. It hits you in ways you don’t expect. Relief wasn’t something I expected to feel as neither of my parents was suffering from a degenerative illness when they died. Yet, 16 years on, looking back, I do feel relieved. Especially as I watch friends juggling difficult care decisions for ageing, ill parents. I’ve seen how it can take you over. The endless trips back and forth to a hospital bed to visit a parent who no longer knows who you are. The hopes of a small recovery dashed after yet another breathless rush to the bedside. The terror of not finding a parking space in an overfilled hospital car park. Life on hold, in case of a sudden a turn for the worse. Constantly waiting for that phone call, terrified of missing the end, hoping it won’t come yet but deep down perhaps longing for it to be over? Then guilt about that secret longing.

I was spared all that. What’s the point living into late old age unless you have a reasonable quality of life? I had an aunt who lived to her mid-90s. A widow for years she managed to stay in her own home yet every time I visited, she said, “How much longer is this going on!” Furious that death was eluding her. She simply couldn’t see the point in remaining alive. How I loved her for her brutal honesty.

I partly envy my friends who still have their parents, but I truly don’t envy them that rite of passage ahead.

I think when you lose your parents, that’s the moment you feel truly grown up. There’s no one above you now, no one to refer up to. Instead, if you were fortunate enough to have good parenting, you absorb all their teachings and parent yourself. Self-reliance. Isn’t that what parents most want for their kids? That they’ll survive and thrive on their own?

People are being kept alive for far longer now – but is being alive enough? No one is ever really ready to say goodbye to their parents but, even so, I can’t help wondering how sad it really is when someone dies in their late 80s or 90s after a good long life. When I hear such tales I often feel a burning rage that I was robbed of my parents while in my early 40s. Why couldn’t I have had my mum and dad around for longer? It is possible to feel furious that they died relatively young as well as relief that this is a bridge I’ve crossed while others have still to face it. Psychologists call this cognitive dissonance: holding two opposing thoughts or feelings at the same time.

It’s something anyone who has faced a major bereavement will recognise. It’s why grief is so exhausting – so many jumbled feelings: I’m glad you went swiftly/I wish you were still here.

If the long, slow decline is painful to watch it must be unbearable to live it – as my aunt attested. But I’ll always remember my parents as they were. And I keep them alive in my own way because I talk to them all the time. And I know that somewhere, wherever they are, they can hear me.