Christmas Day 2050

This is my entry into a fiction writing contest hosted by @pensiff. Find details here:
https://steemit.com/contest/@pennsif/fiction-contest-christmas-day-in-2050-write-a-diary-entry-20-sbd-to-be-won

Dear Diary-
It is Christmas morning, 2050. I would normally start my entry by covering the mundane items here, the temperature, precipitation, perhaps a few top headlines... but this Christmas morning is like no other I have ever experienced, nor shall it be repeated. I cannot feel the weather, I cannot read the headlines. I can hear people in the house, some crying. There is an old saying, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." It no longer applies to me. I seem to have died in my sleep last night.

My implant is allowing me to interface with my personal device still. I may be the first person to have died with one operational, they are still very "trendy" and mostly young, healthy people have them. Sort of like getting involved in steemit back in 2017, I was one of the early-birds to consent to this technology. I don't know how long that little battery will go on, but my auto-diary function is still connected. I am dead, but I am still here. That is a Christmas gift like no other, if you think about it! At the least it is allowing me a unique gift; a chance to stand on this side and talk to you, on that side. It feels pretty important, I hope that I do not blow this.

I did not want to accept the implant, I did not embrace transhumanism. I only consented to one, the auto-diary implant, because I needed to stay on steemit to cover my medical expenses. The ability to transmit my thoughts directly to the blockchain became "life support." My body long ago gave out and I was too old to be eligible for anything but "palliative care." I was not ready to die and turned to steemit, I asked for help on my blog. Like so many before me, the steemians lifted me up in spirit and financially when hard times fell. I am not covered with antennae and probes, I do not have an exoskeleton or even a footwheel. I am not transhuman. "Trans" means across, you can cross back but you cannot uncross. I came into this world a human, I wanted to go out a human. I succeeded. I am human still, I assure you. A dead human, yet my consciousness was able to linger with you this little while, such an odd thing. I can hear your grief, I hope this does not freak you all out. OK, it is surely going to freak you out when you find it, but when you think about what is going on here, what I am telling you... again, all I can think to say is "Merry Christmas!"

My grandchildren thought it was the coolest thing ever when their granny got 'planted. That is what the kids call it now. A wonderful marketing strategy, what could be more natural than a plant? They spent months asking what I was augmenting next before they finally believed I was not doing anymore implants. Well, my beloveds, your granny will now be "planted" the old fashioned way, in the ground. Dust to dust... very soon, this old body will be dust. For now, I have just a little time before this battery dies taking me with it. With no heartbeat recharging it, it cannot last long, so let me say what I feel is important. I stand here on the bridge between "here" and "there" and there is one thing that permeates everything over here. I know you have heard it before, but maybe now you can believe? It is OK over here. There is nothing to fear. It is all love, just love one another.

Oh, look! There is a baby over there, I think He is calling to me...

Image is mine from last winter, I forget which camera I used.