Here's another question you don't need to answer, but I would like to know what some others say about it "Besides death and dying, what do you fear the most?"

When my father transitioned I sat and called him within a few hours after, and I could feel his presence, even though his physical body was gone. I spent some time talking with him. It was profound to know with ABSOLUTE certainty that there is life that continues on after the physical body. I have no doubt, and of course you will have no doubt when it happens to you.

Promise you will come visit if you are not too busy doing fabulous things, zipping around, visiting people and loved ones

I admire you. I bless you on your journey

My father, born in 1909 in Oakland, California, had a favorite aunt who was a newspaper reporter in Los Angeles in the 1920s. One night my father was awakened from a sound sleep by Aunt Lottie's voice screaming, "Tommy! Tommy! Help me!" He puzzled over this but decided it must have been a dream because Aunt Lottie was 400 miles away in LA.

The next morning the family got a call that Aunt Lottie had been killed in a car crash in Los Angeles.

My father was neither religious nor superstitious and this was the only time in the 55 years I knew him that he recounted such a creepy tale. So I have to believe that it really happened.

Gail...

How rude.

Yeah, Gail, R-U-D-E.

My heart soared for a second when I read that the blog would go on for five more years.........and then plummeted when I realized that the 5 years would be without you, Ronnie, at the helm. So now I'm back to middle ground, really delighted that you are managing this for us. Another Ronnie trait I've appreciated so much over time, your generosity, it's huge. Thank you for taking such good care of us. Again.
And Bruce.........hmmmm, You caught me at a good time, it's beautiful out, a lot of gardening got done this morning, I just finished meditating, knowing that the others in my sangha were also sitting, so the answer, in this moment is "nothing."
Another moment...............

I’m not sure I believe there is life after death since I don’t remember anything before birth. Seems to me it would be revolving if it were true. If there is life, it doesn’t necessarily mean we come back as a human. Going on and on now, too much to ponder. We should all just live for today.

P.S. I’m not the rude Gail from above.

I always look forward to your posts and the interesting comments. You write so well, I wish I could write half as well on my blog. I hope your blog and the comments give you joy and help you. During the last few years of my husband Alzheimer‘s illness the comments on my blog were the only interesting words I heard (virtually) and they brought me comfort.

I’ll tell you what happened to me last year and many can roll their eyes – so be it. My husband died in late 2018. I still have most of his clothes in our house in Atlanta and some here in Nashville also. I travel back once a month to Atlanta to clear out the house. In Atlanta in May 2019 I had started placing some of his clothes in large black plastic bags. I carried them downstairs to the porch to bring them to Goodwill later, being careful that nothing was on the floor or in my way as the bags were large and heavy. In the bedroom closet I came to one of his favorite outfits that he wore often on trips, a beige plaid shirt and khaki pants. I was very sad to place them in the bag but I did with a heavy heart, and took the bag downstairs. Going back up, in the hall, was a photograph upside down on the floor. How did an old photo get there? The hall had been empty or I would have dragged what was on the floor. My photos are on the computer and I moved my old print photos to Nashville. I turned the photo up and there was my husband smiling, wearing the beige plaid shirt and old khaki pants I just placed in the bag. He was standing in front of an angel statue in Mexico where we had been years ago. How did the photo get there and that one with the exact outfit I had been so reluctant to let go? I did not know. I still don’t know. We don’t believe there are extra terrestrials, but there may be, so if there are, why not extra physical happenings somehow? I went back and kept the shirt by the way. With several more of his shirts I’m going to make a pillow.

Bruce, more than anything I fear inability to make my own decisions, relentless sadness, and nothing beautiful to see or hear.

Andrea Bonette up above: My father had a similar experience of being woke up from a nap hearing the voice of a dear uncle and then learning a few hours late r that the uncle had died at the same time my dad got woke up from his nap. He told my mom about it before the call came so do not let the naysayer who 'rolled her eyes' annoy you. It's the only time my dad every had an experience like that and he was not religious either, like yours.

I had a experience after my husband died when I think he was trying to communicate with me. I had my wedding ring hanging on a straight pin on a bulletin board near my computer. (It was too tight to wear.) The minister came over to help me plan his funeral and after he left I found that ring sitting on my keyboard, the straight pin still firmly in place on the board. That ring had been there over a year and it was the only time it 'jumped ship' and no one else was in the house. The minister did not go in the room with the computer. Who knows, maybe a person's energy field/spirit hangs around for a short while. We don't know what we don't know.

I fear having to leave my home for an assisted living or worse, a nursing home. A stroke worries me most, as you still have your mind, but often not your body.
Being a childless widow with friends my age or older, I fear not having the mind to handle my affairs and having to turn that over to some court appointed guardian.

Ultimately, I hate, but do not fear, just not knowing what’s going on in the world as crazy as it is. I’m too curious, I guess. But the feeling of the dread of non existence for all time forever to come, can unnerve me.

I don’t believe in an afterlife really, but one never knows.

I agree that the worst fear for me is being incapacitated. My mother died of a massive stroke at almost 83 after being in a wheelchair for a year. My father, age 86 at the time was taking care of her. She had medications, (probably for high cholesterol, blood pressure, and glaucoma),however,she was overweight her entire life and an alcoholic, only sober for 10 years at the end after much damage and probably her doctor laying it on the line about her chances of surviving if she continued to imbibe. My father died at age 94 from congestive heart failure but he was able to live on his own until the end with my youngest sister checking on him. He also suffered from dementia the last few years.

Due to my life-long depression battle I have always exercised to alleviate the symptoms b/c antidepressants only work for brief time and have side effects for me. So, at 80, I am in good health. MY husband is almost 80 and is also in excellent health. He is always full of energy and never misses a day of either riding his bike for 18 miles, or walking on the treadmill for an hour plus shorter walks in the neighborhood in the evening. I do find that my mood is better after I can work in my garden being in nature, and having my daily walks.

I have 3 children, and am most close to my only daughter who lives 45 miles away from us. I do not want for her to take on the burden of caring for me or for us both. My husband has one daughter but she would not be able to be a helper or a resource having her own problems to contend with. So....we both are plant based eaters and have been for about 10 years now and continue to eat healthy. Only a glass of wine for me about 5 pm everyday and no alcohol at all for spouse.

The only experience of visitation by a deceased person was when my friends and I rented a house near the coast and I was awoken about 3 am by a spirit dive bombing me as I slept in the living room of the vacation home we had rented for the trip. He had been a co-worker of my former husband who was sympathetic to him I assumed. It was very alarming.

When I visited my mother in the hospital as she lay in a coma I talked with her and told her that she could leave and I loved her. She died soon thereafter. I think that she was holding on hoping my older sister would visit her but that wasn't going to happen.

Yes, please, Ronni, share your elderblogger list. That is part of your vast legacy: bringing us all together.

And here I will add my attitude toward dying. I'm with Carl Sagan, who said that we are all "starstuff," all part of the energy of the universe. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Like Sagan, I believe that when we die, our energy returns to the cosmos; we are back in the place we were before we were conceived. This is what Sagan told his young daughter when she asked him about death.

" Finally, he said that there was nothing he would like more in the world than to see his mother and father again, but that he had no reason—and no evidence—to support the idea of an afterlife, so he couldn't give in to the temptation. 'Why?' Then he told me, very tenderly, that it can be dangerous to believe things just because you want them to be true. You can get tricked if you don't question yourself and others, especially people in a position of authority. He told me that anything that's truly real can stand up to scrutiny."

In other words, trust the evidence of science until there is other evidence that proves something different. So, "rude" Gail, we are on the same page.

I love this from Carl Sagan. Such a wise and decent man. I’m almost glad he didn’t live long enough to see the sad and dangerous mess America has turned into with our current so called leadership and slow destruction of our planet and everything we once held dear.

I don’t think you’re looney at all. It happened! Unexplainable, yes, but it happened. If only we were all as lucky as you to have had such a beautiful experience.

Hi Ronnie - I, for one, promise to do my best to post my Last Day or Month or Year in Time Goes By in honour of you. I am 86.5 so I think your 5 year gift should cover me - thanks!