Since we were old enough to comprehend what our parents were saying to us, we have been told to never give up. From them quoting that freaking train and his, “I think I can, I think I can” to “talks” with those same parents when you wanted to quit Little League, choir, the Boy Scouts or the Brownies, it has long been made apparent to us that quitting is shameful, weak, even an embarrassment. In the great game of life, those who quit are the people you didn’t want to be around. They were the people who would never be respected or trusted or valued.

Late in her life, my grandma suffered from a number of medical problems. She had already battled breast cancer and won. She had diabetes, and complications with that disease had robbed her of all her sight in one eye and the majority of it in the other. And she was a widow, my grandpa having died in a hunting accident years before. Then, her kidneys started failing. While it certainly is never a good thing that your organs are unable to function, there are medical steps that can be taken to allow for life.

But my grandma didn’t want to do a thing. Her kidneys were going to continue to slowly fail, the toxins in her body would not be removed but instead remain in her body, slowly poisoning her, and she would die because of it. And she was OK with that conclusion.

For a long time, I struggled with this choice. Even as an eighth-grader, I could not make sense of her decision.

How could she just give up on life? How could she just quit? You only get one life, you only get to spend a limited time on this Earth, and she was throwing in the cards without fighting to stay longer. I was mad at her for quitting on life, for quitting on us.

Only later did I realize that this was the best choice for her. She contacted the local hospice office, and representatives from that organization took all the steps they could to make the rest of my grandma’s life comfortable, reassuring and enjoyable. They talked with her about why she wanted to make this choice. They talked to us about why she was making this choice and taught us how to find the joy in the time we still had with her.

Still, I couldn’t understand. Her actions just went against all reasoning to me. The one thing, at that time, that scared me more than anything was death. The thought of leaving this life, this world, and never returning.

And why were my parents, the same two people who scolded me when I wanted to quit my paper route because I was tired of tromping through the winter snow drifts, accepting her quitting?

One day as we were leaving my grandma’s house after visiting with her, a tear escaped my eyes and trickled down my cheek when she said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“How do you know you’ll see us tomorrow?”

I was sick of seeing her accept this defeat. There was still time for her to get the treatment and live. “Dustin, stop crying over me. I’ve lived a long time — longer than I could have ever asked for. But I want to go.”

I can’t remember exactly how long she held on, her warm smile and gentle hands making us forget for precious seconds that we were about to lose her even during our last visits. And I can’t remember how long it took me to understand why she did what she did and accept it as the best option for her. Maybe partially when she was alive, but unfortunately, not entirely until after she had passed away.

But as the memories are unlocked even today, I remember my grandma, her soft voice dancing in my ears as she talked and laughed even in her final days. And even as her skin was turning slightly yellow, even as I could feel the fluid in her arms as I wrapped her up in an embrace, I’ve never seen someone so at peace and content.

Every once in a while, it seems, quitting is what makes us love, respect and admire.