It’s a simple grief.

On Thursday, my grandfather died.

He was 89. There was some Alzheimers — more on some days than on others — as well as the usual and not-entirely-gentle ravishes of aging. He moved slowly, forgot most things, recognized rarely, but he was happy. Happy to sit in his chair and stare at his wife of 65 years. Happy to eat pie for dinner. Happy to watch old movies. Happy, generally, to have earned the time to simply be happy and do nothing at all.

But behind the scenes — behind his simple happiness — was the typical maelstrom: the unraveling and fracturing of the siblings, the warring over “what is best,” and the miscommunication born of the heartache of a long goodbye. It’s hard to grieve the living. It feels disloyal, but it’s also inevitable.

Aging in America is often the true great American tragedy. He was fortunate to age with money; financially capable of making his own decisions about where and how. Like many of us, he did not care to plan for the inevitability that he would, one day, no longer be capable of the things he desired: to sit and stare at his wife of 65 years, to eat pie (or anything at all, really) for dinner, to watch old movies. The plans we make for our golden years are often painfully optimistic. We will live, we will travel, we will be visited by those who love us, and then, as if on cue, we will die peacefully in our beds. He was one…