“ I think of death as the cessation of life.”

I see it a little differently. Humans have been conditioned their whole lives to believe that life and death are opposites. The opposite of death is not life; it is birth. Life has no opposite. It is a oneness principle. Life does not cease with death. It merely changes form. Our bodies may die but we are not our bodies. Our bodies are vehicles we use for a short time in order to express the life that we are in a seemingly physical reality. Just my take.