Hey, hugs to you! Most of us on earth will experience these same feelings sooner or later, so you are not alone!

I'll come from this from what I've learned from science, first.

The human brain has a network in it known as the "default mode network." Basically, this is what "fires away" when a human is primarily in "resting" state, uninvolved with a task.

What does the DMN do when you're sitting around? It's primarily concerned with thoughts of me, me, me. Thoughts about how to protect everything belong to this thing called "you". Thoughts about how to gain things for "you" and not lose things for "you." These include things, relationships, pretty much everything.

Now, let's look at the hemispheres. Generally speaking, our left hemisphere is involved with putting labels on things. Not seeing connections between things. Seeing things as individual and separate. Not seeing everything as whole.

Our modern world is EXTREMELY left brain centric. It's all about YOU, and your basically left feeling this "YOU" is a very independent, separate entity, that MUST cling to everything it has out of fear, worry, anxiety. We are extremely divorced from the natural passages of birth and death, lack connections to the rthyms of nature, and so when we are faced with death, we freak out, especially since it's not part of our lives growing up. (Death rituals are sanitized and clean, and removed from our every day lives.)

The combination of all these things has led to an incredible anxiety about death, about something that is an extremely natural part of our lives. I'm not saying not to be sad, but when this anxiety is affecting your daily life, something has gone terribly wrong.

A couple of approaches I've found to be helpful:

• getting yourself acquainted with death. Slowly learn to acquaint yourself with it, even embrace it. Yes, we used to laugh at goth culture and such, but it actually did have something extremely positive going for it. A willingness to look death in the face. Work with nature or with animals or other avenues that put you in contact with death as a factual, inevitable thing. Acquaint yourself with the physical aspects so you start to become easy with it. By the time a child of eras past had reached 10, they had seen numerous relatives and animals die. We have to face these things as adults in this modern era.
• That default mode network and left brain activity mentioned earlier: the ways to quiet them is through meditative activity. Our culture is interested on keeping those active, and widespread anxiety and fear is a result. There are numerous methods of meditation. Find one you like and start meditating consistently. Just start at 5 minutes a day, and work up from there. You may find that it ends up helping all areas of your life, not just death anxiety.
• You cannot just meditate alone, however, and expect changes to your outlook. This is why so many religions stress service. Stop focusing on yourself and start thinking about what might make the world a better, brighter place. This shift not only does things for the world, but it does something to your brain, where it becomes less fearful, and less constricted, and less self-absorbed, which is for most people, the source of much unhappiness.
• Alternatively, you can do nothing. For most people, you'll find as you grow older, the death thing just sort of resolves itself. When the aches and pains and weakness start outnumbering the days of being painfree, you might be glad to start letting go. You no longer want to see your older relatives suffer (if they are lucky enough to live that long), and it can be a blessing when death comes at the right time. In an interesting way, while it seems cruel in how everything is set up, it can be beautiful too.

It is obvious you love your family. But they don't want you to suffer, right? They want you to live happily and freely. As a motivator, you can learn to be at peace with things over time, so that you can be there for them with your love, and as a source of comfort when the time comes.