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About twenty years ago, Hannibal, the eldest son of my brother, died quite suddenly. He was 17. My father, 80 at that time, was very sad and was grieving, just like the rest of the family. From the depths of his sorrow he said: “The death of this young man is not right. If I had died, that would have been the right age, but not him …”

The right age to die? Is there a ‘right’ age to die?

This made me wonder, and made me think, and ponder some more. The question of whether there is a right age to die also opened up new perspectives in my research. I started to think about the very word ‘lifespan’. What does it really mean? Up to what age could we live? Up to what age should we live? Up to what age would I like to live? And why?

When I look at the life around me – potted plants in my window, fluttering butterflies in the garden, my loyal cocker spaniel Kutta – it is easy to see that lifespan is limited. Sooner or later everyone, and everything, will die.

That’s how it has been since life started on our planet about 3.8 billion years ago. Give or take. We don’t know exactly when or how. We have no first-hand account or witness to that, since no individual has been living continuously from that time. Hundreds of thousands of different species and life forms, for example dinosaurs, have lived and disappeared.

Our own species, Homo sapiens, is less than half a million years old, but no individual human being has survived for that long. Far from it. At best, some of us can hope to survive some ten or twelve decades.

Perhaps one day our species will also die out. We don’t know how long the lifespan of our species is. Or, at a more personal level, how much time I have as Suresh Rattan. I cannot predict either of these things, and I am a biogerontologist. A bit embarrassing, isn’t it?