Am I Afraid of Death?

Recently I've had the idea of premature death due to complications of diabetes brought up to me (thanks to a troll on Reddit, no less, but Reddit is full of them and I don't really care anymore).  So that brings the question to my mind, am I afraid of death?  Am I afraid of a premature death due to diabetic complications?

The answer is no, not necessarily.  I think I've accepted the fact that the majority of diabetics die younger than the general population, but statistics show it's usually only by ten or fifteen years.  I can accept not having ten or fifteen years of my life.  It's better than how my grandma went.

Dementia-related death is what scares me.  My grandpa was terrible at keeping himself healthy -- the man had three triple bypasses.  Yes, you read that correctly.  The man had a slew of health problems, including trouble with his heart, his cholesterol, his kidneys, and any other mass assortment of things. He was also a type 2 diabetic. However, what ended up taking him was a stroke and the aftermath of that. He didnt walk with a cane or walker, and had no wheelchair. I remember him as a boisterous man who clicked his dentures at my brother and I as a kid, not as someone going through hardened arteries, potential amputations, or retinopathy. For someone who took such poor care of himself, he didn't get taken from us because of his diabetes. He was taken from us from a love of food and too little exercise.

My grandma though, she was healthy as a horse. She had no major problems, no diabetes or kidney or heart disease and took medications that helped with arthritis and some, from what I understand as mild, cholesterol problems. Her glasses were an inch thick and she'd had cataracts, but nothing life-threatening for goodness sake.

But then it happened. She had a mini-stroke while visiting her sister with my dad. Her sister was already sliding downhill, as she had already had a series of mini-strokes. She had them while taking a nap, and it scared the crap out of my dad when she woke up and didn't recognize him.

That's what I'm afraid of. Having this prolonged slide into death. I'd rather reach home base running, thank you very much. A year in a nursing home, medicated and confused out of my brain? No thanks.