someone PLEASE help me grapple with death

my aunt, who has ALS, has opted for VSED (i hadn’t heard the term before — but it’s voluntarily stopping eating and drinking) (which sounds impossible). it’s just beyond my capacity to understand the path from here, alive, enriching our lives to — not here. i mean i do understand it. but not. also i wanted to ask her what she loved, what she regretted, advice she would give all of us, but there never seemed…the moment. not with my mom, either, though for different reasons. also i think why people have mid-life crises — and not the kind where you abandon your family and date a 22-year-old, more like a crisis of faith/understanding, though I guess that could play out in many ways, including via red sports cars and 22-year-olds — is because suddenly death and injury and sadness are all around you, the youthful injustices to your body are catching up with you, your face looks different (in a GOOD way, right), your parents or friends’ parents are dying, you have friends who have died, you have seen sadness, you have seen so much beauty, you see or feel the (not-immediately) looming end and it’s so unknown and overwhelming and like HOLY WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT.