What "dying with dignity" meant varied from age to age.
For example, in Pan Long's previous life, calling someone "dignified" meant they had distinguished themselves in science, culture, sports, or some other field, earning the admiration and praise of many.
Pan Long had several friends who fit that description.
One was a friend who had studied history. For some thirty years of his middle age, he had traveled through economically backward regions, mediating ethnic conflicts caused by history, religion, and other factors. At sixty, he received the Grand Federation's Humanities Medal. Later, despite his age, he even joined the Alpha Centauri expedition...
Pan Long was older than him and had died before learning how the expedition turned out. If time flowed at the same rate in both worlds, they should have reached Alpha Centauri by now and established humanity's first permanent settlement beyond the solar system, right?
When that brother died, Federation News would probably run a memorial segment of at least ten minutes just for him...
Now that was dying with dignity!
Of course, a person did not have to be quite so extraordinary to earn that respect. There had been an old man in their neighborhood who had devoted himself to community service day after day for decades. He helped one person today and another tomorrow. Over his lifetime, he never did anything as grand as rescuing people from catastrophe. He simply did more small kindnesses than anyone could count.
On the old man's 120th birthday, the community painted a mural covering an entire wall in his honor. They called it "Sixty Years Come Round Again, Warmth Fills the World."
That was dignified too!
Pan Long found himself thinking again.
He had never earned that kind of treatment in his previous life. Apart from his children, grandchildren, and