Thank you for your anecdote. It's interesting and valuable to think about.
What's frustrating to me in my own position in life is this feeling that so much is out of my control. So in a sense it's like seeing others stealing my life from me or some such thing. Through ignorance, or bias, or malice, or whatever the case might be, it's not knowing how to do what you'd like, even when it seems relatively modest.
So this perspective, of "preparing to die has a lot to do with having had a good life," has started to take on this other perspective. Frankly it makes me a bit angry, to read advice coming from people of relatively good social status, who have the privilege to write a book that garners attention because of their own vocation, to do an interview about their ability to do carpentry in their spare time, to have the resources for it. But what about the individuals shut out of those opportunities, whatever it is they wanted?
I'm not really sure what my underlying point is but the article and your story seem like complements to me, and touch on frustrations I have with society in general, and what I see as lost opportunities for having a life one sees as good. I have mixed feelings about articles like this because they never go further than the personal despair of those experiencing the despair, and not into the deeper issues. If dying peacefully means having a satisfying life, why are we so focused on the pain at the end, and not what gets them there, and what we can do differently?
It seems to me that the pain that accompanies euthanasia, suicide, and natural death are all the same pain at some level. And in all these cases the discussion is focused on that endpoint, not how to prevent it over the long run.