My ex boss died recently of cancer, and while it might sound awful, it is probably for the best of everyone, them included.
They were I have no doubt in their time a decent person and there were elements of that still, but having known others who died from cancer, I can say they handled it in the worst possible way and so did their employer. We are talking here of someone in a fairly privileged position, and have more elements under their control than most people impacted by cancer.
What should have happened: Said employer puts them off on long term illness leave, and they do small projects here and there, where they can, to give them a sense of purpose without overwhelming them. Other employees are given enough powers to operate well and can call on support if needed.
They were in a senior enough position to allow this and the employer was wealthy enough to enable this.
What actually happened: Senior figures at said employer didn’t bother to learn the skills of what said boss was doing and pushed burden on junior staff. Junior staff constantly left in dark and made to feel guilty about bosses illness. When boss was in the office they would raise the topic in an emotionally blackmailing way. Leading to several staff leaving. Boss has now died with no preparations made for this, despite the death being pretty much inevitable as Stage Four cancer.
I left the company for a better job, sometime ago but bumped into current employees recently and found out about the death, one particularly telling thing is the perhaps that most mourned the bosses death was those who worked alongside them, but were the same level or more senior, while those who worked under them were not in the same way.