According to the teachings, at the moment of death your, we could use better words maybe, but your "consciousness" will leave your body. Your body is finished, that stays here, it's just the earth element, water element. The wind element is almost finished, it will be soon. The heat element will generate for a little while then it will be finished. But the consciousness, your Kammic mind, thoughts - I am using different words here because there is no perfect English word for this - your consciousness will leave the body at the moment of death.
Now, for most people it automatically gets another body somewhere. It's going to be brand new birth, it goes together with a sperm and an egg, into humans or other animals; it becomes an egg if it's going to be reborn into a bird and so on. It might get reborn spontaneously in the hell realms or in the heaven realms. This is what Buddhism teaches at the moment of death. If it does not get reborn immediately, it gets stuck in a type of, you could almost think of "ghost" realm where it has to wait for a little while before it gets reborn instantly. Now, we could say, well, it's actually reborn into this ghost realm and then later gets reborn into another, these are all theoretical descriptions. But they say that this ghost realm is because that person is too attached to what they have left behind.
An example of this might be if I die, but I am worried about Rosemary. If I am worried too much, and attached to being concerned about her, I will stay around her and this could be why some people claim they see ghosts. The people hang around because they are worried about who they've left behind. It's only when the person left behind is okay or t they die, then the "ghost" person is able to leave that ghost realm and be reborn in a better or different, basically real type of existence, we could say.
But these are all words and it's just from the books, so I am not speaking from experience here. However, it is something to consider in the sense of when you do die this may all be true. I specifically mention about this ghost realm because I would hope none of you get stuck in it. This is part of letting go of attachment to everything you've got. We talked about Equanimity a minute ago and attachment and so on.
Yesterday I talked about death on different levels and who you are when you were fifteen is no longer alive. Being able to let go, being able to let go of loved ones, being able to let go of our wives, husbands, children, parents and so on at the moment of death so we can be reborn according to our own Kamma and not get stuck, that's something to consider.