How to get more comfortable with death

[no_hypocrisy]

1. I'm 66+ and have been musing about my eventual demise.

It could be today, tomorrow, 20 years or so. I'm just grateful we're not born with a calendar date of our death.

When my mother was dying in the hospital, she asked me where did I think we go when we die. I gave her the advice a dear friend gave me.

I asked my mother where was she before she was born. She said she didn't know. I told her that she was returning to pre-existence. In other words, she was renting a house and the lease was up. You just move on.

It gave her comfort.

I told my cardiologist and primary care physician that all I want from them is vitality in my last years. I'm OK with death on a certain level. I believe it "gets real" when, like my mother, you realize you don't have to bother balancing your checkbook before death is that imminent.

Finally, I prefer to consider death (if free of pain and suffering) as a transformation, a transition. I'm not ready for it .... yet.