A few weeks ago, I was out to dinner with my parents and my grandparents. My grandfather is 90 years old and in relatively good health but he's slowed down a lot recently. My family has gotten much less religious over the years (we're Jewish) as it has come out that no one really believes in the religion, from my grandparents on down. The thought of my grandfather facing his own death with no faith really depressed m…
My guess is that all people -- religious or not -- are completely terrified towards the end. But maybe religion can bring comfort to some, so that they are terrified to a lesser degree.
While I'm too young to say, I think at the time you are old, your brain would have changed (or degraded) sufficiently enough to handle it with relative ease. That's the only way it makes sense to me when I read about ailing people talking about seeing the exit, the final candle, or whatever.
That aside, I also consider "what happens after you die" to be the ultimate question. Because nobody alive, dumb or smart, knows the answer, and nobody has come back to tell us. It just depends on when you think you are ready to find the answer. Perhaps after you solve the unified field theory everything will converge.