That good night: gift or punishment?

[Formendacil]

If death, as we know it, is the consequence of the Fall, in Catholic and/or Athrabeth terms, how can is also be seen as the Gift of Men?

I was sort of wondering that as I read Lhuna's post, and this stood out for me:

Originally Posted by Lhunardawen

Death is also considered as the end of life's "first phase," and the rite of passage from life on earth to an eternal life in heaven, which is the actual reward - similar to how childbirth is an infant's exit from life inside his mother's womb to his life independent from his mother. The case in Middle Earth is the same, I believe. The gift of Men, I think, is a perfect, eternal life with Eru, and the fact that they are not bound to the Music.

If the Gift of Man is an early departure from this world (compared with the Elves or Ainur), then perhaps the consequence of the Fall wasn't so much the fact that Men must now depart from this world, but that Men must die to do so.

Thinking about Eden (if I may use this Christian term to refer to pre-Fall Man), I have to wonder if Eru intended Man to be immortal therein. After all, Eden was apparently here on this earth, and yet the Gift of Man (present from the Musis itself) is to release Man from this world. Perhaps there was to be, in Eden, a transition at some point from the earthly paradise of worship to the heavenly paradise of worship.

In this perfect world, Arda Unmarred, perhaps the intention was that Man would naturally, after time in this world, pass on as easily as a traveller, without the pain and agony associated with death. Perhaps in pre-Fall forms, the entire Man, body and spirit, would leave the Circles of the World at the time of release, instead of the painful sundering of body and spirit that we now call death.

Remember, with the Elves the sundering of body and spirit in death is unnatural, and ultimately (either in this world or in Arda Remade) the Elves are to be rehoused. The same would appear to be true for Man, once he dwells in Arda Remade. Perhaps the original intention was for Man to journey from this world to the world beyond body and spirit, like the Elves, the Gift of Man being, of course, a much earlier transition.