Time to die

I was at a "post apocalypse" bookswap at The Booksmith and this guy and I started talking about living forever vs. being forever young. He said that if he could take a pill that would allow him to live forever, he'd do it in a second. I pointed out that he'd have to watch all of his friends and family die. He said that would be okay because he would meet new people and he'd always have the trees and the mountains and the oceans, etc. He talked about how much he loves this life and how sad he would be to leave it.
I remember that. I remember not wanting to leave this life, not being able to imagine wanting anything more than being here. In some ways, I guess I still do want to be here more than anything else, to live this life, but I don't want to live forever. I originally thought that it was because I'd have to say goodbye to everyone, to watch everyone die and feel kind of lonely still being here when everyone I knew and loved had left. But as I thought about it, it felt more like there's a point at which, you don't really belong here anymore.
Have you ever been at a party, after most people have gone home, and the host is cleaning up, and you're just, there? It's like it's done, but you're still lingering. Or when you've put a ton of work in to some project and it's up and running on its own and you can just leave, but you're still there watching it, from the sides, feeling a little superfluous? When I pictured myself living forever, it felt like that- like I was still lingering around after my life was over. It's not so much that I don't love this life or want to be here in it, it just feels like there will be a point in my life when I'm kind of done. I don't know when it's going to be and I might even die before I reach that point, but still, it just feels like there will be a time in my life when I have offered all my stuff and I'll feel comortable leaving.

The next morning during service, it struck me that maybe my mom was done when she died, that she had reached that point too. But then I thought that that didn't make sense. It didn't make sense that my mom's "purpose" in life was to raise three kids and to only be there for 6 years of the youngest one's life. That just didn't sound right.
But then I thought about the fact that she had cancer. Maybe she had a purpose in life, maybe it was fulfilled, maybe it wasn't, but then cancer showed up, and it changed things. Maybe by the time she actually did die she really was done: with fighting cancer, with saying goodbye to her friends and family, with accepting that she couldn't live this life anymore. Maybe if she kept living after the point at which she was supposed to die she would have suffered, through worse cancer or something else that no one knew about. I don't really know. It just feels like maybe she just died when she died, that it was her time, that her life was done, even if none of us wanted it to be.
I don't think it makes it any easier but I guess it feels more matter of fact, like there wasn't a choice, like we didn't lose her, like she just took another step, in a road she was already on.