Shalom everyone. Found this site only recently, and skimming the threads it looked good. Deciding to register so I can post and share my thoughts and my own experiences this evening I instantly realized that while I have my own issues to discuss, I can share my insights and opinions too. If doing so helps someone hey that'd be swell (yes I said it...I'm bringing it back hehe.)
My stepfather's dying tonight. Riddled by multiple cancers at 81 it's his time. I found the Grief and Loss section and at least right now don't really have anything to talk about for myself. I regard death simply as the inescapable fact of being alive. Nothing in creation is meant to last forever, not people, not planets, not stars, perhaps not even the universe itself - everything that is, eventually isn't. So why do we mourn? I think we mourn because we all know in the backs of our minds we're mortal. But the trick to incorporating this awareness and still being able to live well lies in finding things to do so not constantly contemplating it like some dressed in black goth kid. 
Can either accept life and death as the way it's meant to be, or deny it and comfort ourselves some other way. I prefer accepting reality at face value. But I look both ways before crossing a street and take vitamins hoping to put off reality as long as possible. But when somoene I know is facing their end, I don't have the same negative reactions others seem to. I don't cry and wish it wouldn't happen, or didn't happen, because for myself I understand it HAS to happen eventually. Wishing for reality to go on vacation seems fruitless. I do feel empathy though for those who aren't yet accepting of reality as per their own process of grief and loss. But I admit I'm not very helpful, or don't believe I am because I am much more accepting of it. Even my own religious faith isn't very helpful because unlike other mainstream religions, Judaism doesn't address death as much as the others. We're more about incorporating our beliefs into life while we're alive, not dwelling in an afterlife while still alive like.
And for myself I'm much more 'maybe it's all true, but maybe it isn't.' And concerning death overall my best answer discovered after a lifetime of study remains this: I don't know - I've never died before. Inspired by of all things Mr. Data from Star Trek:The Next Generaiton. An episode had him McGuyvering together something and someone asked him if it's going to work to which he stopped his work thinking for a moment and answered, "I don't know. I've never done this before." Or something like that. But it found residence in my long-term memory it seems and seems the best answer to questions of religion and what happens to us when we die. All I know for certain is nothing in existence is supposed to last forever. So death isn't tragic so much as what's supposed to happen to something that's existed for a while. For people, the hope is that during our life we did more good things than bad things and for our egos, we hope we'll be remembered in a good way.
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