How do you deal being in the presence of death?

I remember about a month before my grandfather died of stomach cancer, my father one day decided that we were going to take him for a ride just to get him out of the house. I must have been 15 back then. He was at a point where he didn’t leave the house and everything was about making him as comfortable as possible. He was so weak at that point that he wasn’t able to walk very far and we had to carry him to the car. I remember we drove up the coastline and to this lookout point in the cliffs where all you can see is just the ocean stretching for miles in every direction. We took him out of the car, sat him in his wheelchair and just watched the sunset in complete silence, no one said a single word during that time. After a while my grandfather spoke out and said we should head back, that’s when I looked at him and saw the tears coming down his face as he was overcome with emotion and that’s when I realized how much it meant to him.

Last weekend, over 24 years later, I went to the same house this time to pick up my uncle who has three brain tumours. Put him in his wheelchair, took him to the car and drove to the same spot and the same silence. It doesn’t get any easier.