So true. After nearly 30 years of no contact, I visited my father on his deathbed two days before he died. ... I was rather curious whether he had anything to say for himself. Perhaps explain his inadequate, at times damaging, parenthood with some enlighted insights from life's wisdom. He didn't.

In a strange sense, his existential emptiness was extremely liberating. At the end of your life, there is no final reckoning, no point in looking back. No regrets, life just ends, that's simply all there is to it.

So whilst alive, you are completely free to do whatever you want. The quicker you dump all the unnecessary crap holding you back the better. It's you holding on to it and limiting yourself, not them.