[Mekatra]

When I worked in the hospice part of the nursing home I had to confront death pretty much every day. I think most people in a modern sense don't really understand what will happen to them and it scares them. Obviously I don't know dip about what happens after that last breath, but after observing a lot of natural deaths (non-traumatic like in a fire or car wreck) over the years, I've decided it doesn't scare me anymore.

Death is a natural part of the life cycle. The body has ways of coping with your impending doom to make it easier on you when it does start to happen. Your senses dull and then shut down one by one. Your hearing is the last thing to go so if you're ever visiting someone in hospice and they seem unresponsive, please talk to them and tell them how much you love them and that it is okay to go, they can most likely still hear you even if they no longer have the energy to respond.

As your organs begin to shut down you will lose your ability to feel hunger and many times the nerves for sensing temperature will go so you're not actually cold when you're actively dying.

It's incredibly peaceful to me. Usually when people die, unless it is in an accident or from some other surprising and traumatic event, they're ready. Often times the body is worn out and it is painful to continue living on anyway, so death can seem a welcome relief to that.

As for what happens afterward, I like to believe in an afterlife, if only because it makes it seem like perhaps that last breath isn't an end. I personally would just filter through some belief systems until you find an afterlife that is most rewarding sounding to you and believe in that. Reincarnation is an iteresting one. I'm a Norse pagan so I like to believe I will end up in one of those afterlifes, though I really don't wanna go to Valhalla.. I'm not much of a fighter.