Death is an inescapable fact of life, the end of every living thing of which none has any experience at all. Every day we live is a step closer to it; talking about it is almost taboo, and every thought of it tend to evoke the fear of the unknown. Death though existent is unknown as no one has come back to tell what true death is like, a concept without object so to speak.
Both laymen and philosophers have the same stand on death. It is unknown and cannot be known for it cannot be experienced by anyone in this life. None can therefore be an expert on that subject. In utter ignorance, people hold two views on this matter. One is that death is real and an ultimate dead end. The other is that death is but a transition to an afterlife.
If death is real, its manifestation is the only thing the living can witness, not death itself. We'd only know that when one dies, the body decays and the person is no longer there. Death is then the end of one's consciousness and existence.
On the other hand, the view of life after death, whether it is a resurrection to some paradise or a reincarnation into the material world, commonly revolves around the idea that man has a soul that lives on after the body has decomposed. The concept is common and already has many speculations, and thus won't be elaborated any further.
According to Plato, a philosopher should concern himself over death and meditate on it. Meanwhile, Spinoza treats it as trivial and better off ignored. While the latter can lead to forgetting death altogether and provide an illusion of permanence, the former may lead to the error of obsession on death that can lead to one's distancing from life instead.
Perhaps it is wiser if we acknowledge the reality of death, and in doing so, make us realise how meaningful life is?