"See you on the other side" during COVID-19, December 2021


It's December of 2021, and as promised, I'm reporting to you in real time what I see happening during this period, which is the age of COVID-19. And if you're struggling to make sense out of people's reactions to this, I think that I can help, especially explaining those who are saying, "See you on the other side" as they face death.

I'm not an anti-vaxxer, nor am I a fatalist, but I am someone who has made peace with my own death. Yes, I'm still young, barely in my sixties, but I'm a stroke survivor, so I had to face the grim reality of pondering my own death, and living with the thought of it. If you've never stared death in the face, and I hope that you never will, this will be difficult, if not impossible, to understand. Stay with me here.

There's really nothing new about people making a choice to die. It goes against our most basic instinct, the will to live, but intellectually it's something that just makes sense. We aren't made to live forever.

I'm in Arizona, and there are a lot of people here who believe that the death of the body is not the end of life. To them it's a transition, going to a place where there's no more pain, where everything is beautiful, and wonderful. It's a beautiful and comforting thought, especially towards the end of life on earth, to think that we might live forever, just in a different place, or in a different way.

If you've never pondered this, I'm envious of you - you're young and healthy. You have a lot of time left here on planet earth, and I hope that in addition to getting the vaccine, you wear your seat belt, and wear a bicycle helmet when you're out pedaling around. I know that I do.

When my time comes I'll look forward to seeing you on the other side, where I'll wait for you, but I'm in no hurry to get there. When I do, I'll be reunited with my lost love ones, so don't worry about me. It will be a place of peace, with no pain. But in the meantime I kinda like it here. I know this place, this is where my dogs are, and this is where I can get gouda cheese. I'm convinced of that, and I'll do whatever I need to do to stay here as long as I can. But there are people who don't feel that way, and as painful as it is for me, I have to let them go.
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