Things don't matter, people do
Death, when it's right there it doesn't seem too huge and terrible to let into your mind.
Is nothing in life ever straight and clear, the way children see it?
After a lifetime's independence– yes, selfish independence as my daughter would rightly claim – I am terrified of being reduced to childhood once more, to helplessness, to seas of confusion from which the cruel lucid intervals poke up like rock shoals.
Let her be with her memories. Better that than be aware of this reality.
I am not afraid of death, which after all can't be far away. What does frighten me, though, is the halfway stage.