‘Control’ in this context( of death)  has two distinct meanings, both equally crucial.

In the first place, ‘control’, as you would expect, means priority and ability to manage, not to force, the compliance of others, to determine what others think or do. In the second, more elusive sense – a sense which, nevertheless, saves my life and which, once achieved, may induce the relinquishing of ‘control’ in the first sense — ‘control’ means that when something untoward happens, some trauma or damage, whether inflicted by the commissions or omissions of others, or some cosmic force, one makes the initially unwelcome event one’s own inner occupation.

You work to adopt the most loveless, forlorn, aggressive child as your own, and do not leave her to develop into an even more vengeful monster, who constantly wishes you ill. In ill-health as in unhappy love, this is the hardest work: it requires taking in before letting be.

Gillian Rose Loves Work