Today, my mother got into a panic looking at the form she would have to fill in to renew her Drivng Licence, about the time of her upcoming 93rd birthday. For a start, she will need a new passport=-type photograph of her self, and someone to endorse it, 'cos she doesn't have a current passport...
I gently express the opinion that, perhaps, she should drive any more (in practice she hasn't driven for a year). She says she feels safer driving than walking, I point out, as tacfully as I can, that driving is more likely to involve the safety of other people... Eventually, sobbing in the rather srtificil way she has, she agrees it might be better to call it a day on her 75 year driving career.
Of course not getting a licence is a symbol of the end of her life. (and has expensive insurance implications for me - a non car owner for 12 years - driving her car)
Anyway, at this moment, my sister - who does far more for our mum than I do - turns up. And although she is, in conversaion with me, if anything more horrified than I am at the thought of her ever driving again, she looks annoyed that I have confronted mother with an inconvenient truth.
So much easier to fill life with evasions and lies.
