Where did the time go?

My father is 82 and is currently hospitalized.  He needs a bypass, a valve repaired, and an aortic aneurism fixed.  He has been there for one week having test after test to make sure he is strong enough to live through the surgery.  He has passed the lung test and his colonoscopy was clear.  So we are now waiting to hear when he can have his surgery.

I spent a few days at his bedside.  I had to help him eat and get up to go to the bathroom.  He can't see well enough to see the food in front of him on his plate. I studied his face as he was sleeping.  I recall watching his mother like this when she was in the hospital, at just about the same age, for cancer.  He looks just like her.

Where did the time go? He was always so strong and independent.  Now he weighs less than I do.  He is afraid to die.  You would think someone at his age would be ready to go.  My mother says the same - "he had a good life".  Why does that not make me feel better about this?  I should consider myself lucky that he got to live this long.  My friend's mother dropped dead at only 65!  My boyfriend's parents are both gone now, having died at approx 68 and 70.  So why do I feel like I have been punched in the stomach?  He is not even dead yet!  There is a chance, whether he has the surgery or not, that he will live several more years. 

I guess what bothers me is the quality of those years.  If you can't see, walk, or hear very well, what do you do?  How can you enjoy life?  He will need someone to feed him, and to help him go to the bathroom.  My mom and my sister (who lives with them and are not in good health either) can't do it.  So that probably means a nursing home.

It just seems like this came upon me so suddenly.  Though I know in the back of my mind I had some awareness of the clock ticking, I guess I just never thought about it too much.  It was too painful.  Well, now it is here and I don't know what to do.  I don't know how to comfort him.  I read stories of NDE's to try to comfort myself that something great awaits him when his life is over here on earth.  Then I read people cruelly trying to contradict and negate these experiences.  So I don't know who to believe.  :-(