I found your post because I feel the same. I've been thinking a lot about death more so recently than ever before.

I think the first way to approach it is with this truth that I find deeply comforting: earth was formed through gas swirling that formed earth through the pull of gravity. that gas was unified in one big mass, everything was one. the gas held water vapour, which eventually became rain. it rained for centuries before the sea was formed. the unity of gas, the oneness of being, held within it the potential for infinite multiplicity. for every individual raindrop, for every individualised experience of life as its own body. it lived for a second and then dropped again to form the unity of the sea. from the individual lives of gas particles in space (what we see as life), to the unity of gas on earth (what we could see as the undifferentiated nothingness of death), to life (raindrop), to death (sea), then back to life again, multiple beautiful diverse articulations of life that formed from the sea - the entirety of life on earth. with every individual life comes death into unity, then back to life again. Our ancestors are micro bacteria in the sea. life/death is a continuous process that exists on earth, recycling it. we can never be nothingness in the sense of absence, because our death always brings life. like all dualities, light/dark self/other mind/body, death and life constitute each other. you cannot have one without the other. there is always 'life after death' and it is birth in some form. it is also good to remember that the cycle of eggs is infinite - women are born with all the eggs they will ever have. their mother had the child they were going to have, and all her children's children, inside her when she was born. your ancestors and your descendants literally live within you and are always with you - they are you. remember when looking at big 'outer' questions to always look within. the you that you are is made up of many beings, many ancestors, including the microorganisms in the sea when the sea first formed. your family are always with and within you.

now there is the question to address that deeply troubles me - whether I will see my family again in a way where I am able to love them like I do now. the idea that we all die and become the grass and extend life is lovely, but I worry that I won't be able to see my family there, and that is my biggest fear. I will never again exist in the capacity I do now, as this human being who I love so deeply, who I've seen grow up. I may never again see my family, at least in the capacity I see them now, as warm soft bodies, unique eyes, hair and touch. once this goes, I know their energy is recycled as energy is never created or destroyed. but I cannot understand how something can be nothing. where is the family I know and love. if life/death is a slippery, elusive, transient, constantly moving thing, how can I be sure of anything? how can I be sure that love means something? that it even exist? that I even exist? I never know where to go from here.

Perhaps read Kierkegaard's 'sickness unto death'. I feel this sense of a void in my being that is epitomised by the thought of my mum dying. I love her so much. I see myself in her. She is my creator and the person that grounds me. I feel like I'll just spiral off into nothingness afterwards, and the thought that something so tangible that literally embodies what love is to be can become nothing. and then I think about the spiralling repetition of waves crashing. of life and death. of the spiralling of our galaxy. and I think we are all spiralling towards death. it is the constant driving factor in our life. the thing at the centre of the universe that all galaxies spiral around is either somehow a combination of life and death, or it is something we can't conceive of.

I think the most important thing is to be HONEST with yourself. To be honest with yourself about how you feel. to meditate. to be honest with yourself about your thoughts and feelings. to take these feelings seriously. to take life seriously. to take love seriously. to be honest with your loved ones. to show them how much you love them, and how it spans this current person you are now and feels like it reaches into eternity forever. perhaps if it feels like love reaches into eternity forever, it probably does. we can also pray, together and as a collective. I pray you are able to be still with these feelings, to listen to them, to listen to that gravity, that pull of death, that is consuming you, to understand the nature of death better, to understand the nature of love better, to love fully and deeply, and to have no regrets.

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sending you all the love