This is not language I'd normally use here. But virtualwhy's advocacy of such a fatalistic viewpoint, and characterization of a parent's death as a "gift", touched a nerve.

Fuck fatalism, fuck acceptance of the inevitable. I'm an agnostic, I don't think there's anything else beyond this life, and having it ripped away that suddenly and unexpectedly is a raw deal, not a gift. I don't know if it'd be preferable to a long, agonizing death; I haven't experienced one of those in my family. Maybe you do end up being fatalistic if you have to live through one of those. I dunno.

It's been almost thirty years. I'm largely over it.