My grandmother died at 87, after a stroke that paralyzed one side of her body. She lingered on for months in a hospital bed, unable to speak. My uncle, her husband, would visit and say ruefully to the rest of us, “She wouldn’t have wanted you to see her like this.”

Perhaps this is why my mother declared, when she was about my age in her later 70s, that she wanted to be at home when it was time to die. She wanted an old-fashioned death. She did not want to be hooked up to so-called life-prolonging equipment in a strange, sterile, busy place.

Mom moved to a nursing home. She began talking about both events and physical objects in ways that sounded hallucinatory to us, but she was invariably cheerful.

When the Grim Reaper finally arrived, the staff at the home were kind, able to honor Mom’s fervent wish to stay where she was and go peacefully. As she labored, the nurses gave her drops of morphine, which visibly eased her. The home’s cat jumped onto her bed, curled up by her feet, and kept vigil with us for the duration.

Like her mother before her, Mom couldn’t speak as she was dying, but she squeezed our hands as we sang to her and retold old family stories. The day before Mom died, my sister brought in a choir to serenade her with songs she loved.

My sister, brother-in-law, and I sat by her bedside in round-the-clock shifts. My stalwart brother-in-law accepted the night shift since we Archer girls get testy when we’re sleep-deprived. As many dying people do, Mom stole away when she was alone for a moment. Now she was free and gone, at peace. No more struggle, freed forever from earthly anxieties and sent off as she wanted by those who loved her best.

I wish you and your loved ones a passing as humane and sweet. And if you so choose, work for the freedom to direct your own health needs, savoring the joy of living that comes with bodily sovereignty and the understanding that we can’t give Death the slip forever. What we should have command over is our quality-of-life preferences.

Chloe Archer is the pen name of a 77-year-old former NH resident now living in Hardwick, Vt.