My father in law went on the ice on april first.
When he announced his intention to do so, he said: " And that is no april's fool joke" ( Translated from Swiss, of course)
Ewald kept his sense of humor to the last.
Actually, since they don't have ice floes in Schweiz ( and to you deniers, no it is not about climate change...........look at a map), he opted for the Swiss Exit strategy instead.
When he was 89, he visited here.
I was sitting in the office, and hearing a strange sound from outside.
It was Ewald running across the pebbles in front of the house, chasing Thais dog.
He'd go after the dog to the corner of the house, thais would race around the backside, then Ewald would meet him at the opposite corner........................booooh!
And so on.
At 89 he walked better than I do.
He was a former " Hochalpinist" a climber of the highest peaks ( Which in Schweiz, really means something), who kept himself in shape his whole life.
His wife died when the 4 kids were from 13 downwards.
The local county decided he couldn't raise them alone, so they showed up to foster 2 of them out.
Ewald grabbed the army rifle that is a part of every Swiss household and did the : " When you pry them out..............." thing.
Raised those 4 kids on his own and all of them turned out splendid.
He was a man I really liked and had a lot of respect for, which fortunately went both ways.
After he turned 90 things started to go really downhill.
His Austrian girlfriend died and he had one illness after the other.
Around new year 21/22 he had to use a walker to get around and was getting steadily worse.
So 2 months ago, he told his kids that he was entering the Exit programme.
I could tell, it meant a lot to him to die by his own decision instead of letting a bunch of doctors be in charge.
He only wanted his 4 kids there for the " Glass of Schnapps", as my wife calls it ( You are met with a doctor, who gives you a glass of liquid. you drink that, lay down and die) so the grandkids, grand grand kids and other family came by during the week to say good bye.
The kids came, they all had a lot of talk and a lot of laughs and Ewald went on the ice.
A fine way to go IMO.
Sorry for going on and on like that, he meant a lot to me.