He that dies in extreme old age will be reduced to the same state with him that is cut down untimely.

However long or short a life runs, it reaches the same place, and the difference lies in the living rather than in the end. That is worth holding if you have lost someone early: it was the time together that was taken, not something they failed to complete. The measure was never the number of years.

If grief of that kind is yours, be gentle with the arithmetic of what they missed; it tends to punish the living without helping anyone. Remember one ordinary hour with them this week rather than the whole shape of what was lost.