I finally understand death and I am no longer afraid of it. Even though I have no reason to expect to die in the near future, the idea of not existing has disturbed me to some degree for as long as I can remember. The idea of reincarnation brought little solace, because if even if my "soul" would go on, my memories and my experiences wouldn't. That hardly seemed like a continued existence, I still felt as if I were facing the nothingness.

It took something from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad for me to really understand the process of death and reincarnation:

When body and mind grow weak, the Self gathers in all the powers of life and descends with them into the heart. As prana leaves the eye, it ceases to see. "He is becoming one," say the wise; "he does not see. He is becoming one, he no longer speaks, or tastes, or smells, or thinks, or knows." By the light of the heart the Self leaves the body by one of its gates; and when he leaves, prana follows, and with it all the vital powers of the body. He who is dying merges in consciousness, and thus consciousness accompanies him when he departs, along with the impression of all he has done, experienced, and known. As a caterpillar, having come to the end of one blade of grass, draws itself together and reaches out for the next, so the Self, having come to the end of one life and dispelled all ignorance, gathers in his faculties and reaches out from the old body to a new. As a goldsmith fashions an old ornament into a new and more beautiful one, so the Self, having reached the end of the last life and dispelled all ignorance, makes for himself a new, more beautiful shape, like that of the devas or other celestial beings. The Self is indeed Brahman, but through ignorance people identify it with intellect, mind, sense, passions, and the elements of earth, water, air, space, and fire. This is why the Self is said to consist of this and that, and appears to be everything.

My fear of death was founded on my fear of letting go of my worldly memories, knowledge, and ideas. That somehow letting go of these things was letting go of me. But these things are not me. Letting go of these things is deconstruction. I've gone through deconstruction in life, why should I fear it in death? Why have I for so long clinged to the idea that I must be defined by what are essentially mortal things. Death is simply a change, a paradigm shift. There is nothing to fear in death, and I shall worry on it no longer.