That good night: gift or punishment?

[Bêthberry]

Let me offer my condolences also to Alatar, even though late. As the psychiatrist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross has shown, there are stages to the process of dying.

Originally Posted by Gurthang

In Middle-Earth, death brings a man closer to Eru. This is probably a better place than Middle-Earth is, so it should be looked forward to, because it is an escape from bad to good. But the people who are attached to their life in Middle-Earth will scorn death because they think they are already in the better place.

I wonder if we can look more closely at how this topic is presented in Tolkien. For instance, where in Tolkien's books is it stated that "death brings a man closer to Eru"? Eru is not named in LotR, so where is this idea developed? I had thought that Tolkien does not explicitly establish in his Legendarium where men go after death.

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