My Father is the only case I know of of someone who literally died laughing. He'd had occasional strokes and finally had a serious enough one that he was sitting in his Lazy Boy chair, attended by two nurses awaiting the arrival of an ambulance. My Father could be very entertaining, and he had the nurses laughing at all of his jokes when the Big One hit him dead on and he keeled over onto the floor, dead.

Other than the occasional widely-spaced strokes which passed with no lasting damage, my Father was quite healthy. But like many elderly men(and women), he insisted that my Mother be with him at all times. For the most part, she was held captive even if only just to be there because he didn't want her to do anything without him.

Unfortunately, negative qualities that are just infuriating when we're younger can become completely overbearing when we get too old to take care of ourselves, physically or emotionally. You can be too old to take care of yourself, but you're never too old to make others miserable.

Jerry