There was an item on the news yesterday about how our society is guilty, guilty, guilty of letting old people die in winter.

But, I shouted at the screen, that's what old people do- they die.

And there's no way of avoiding it. You can postpone it- maybe- but there comes a point beyond which postponing it is crueler than letting it happen.

My dad, the last time I saw him, talked about being ready to "take a walk in the woods".

As Shakespeare says,

"Men must endure their going hence, even as their coming hither.
Ripeness is all."