\n\n\n\n
Death Is Nothing At All<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Death is nothing at all.
\nIt does not count.
\nI have only slipped away into the next room.
\nNothing has happened.
\n
\nEverything remains exactly as it was.
\nI am I, and you are you,
\nand the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged.
\nWhatever we were to each other, that we are still.
\n
\nCall me by the old familiar name.
\nSpeak of me in the easy way which you always used.
\nPut no difference into your tone.
\nWear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
\n
\nLaugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
\nPlay, smile, think of me, pray for me.
\nLet my name be ever the household word that it always was.
\nLet it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
\n
\nLife means all that it ever meant.
\nIt is the same as it ever was.
\nThere is absolute and unbroken continuity.
\nWhat is this death but a negligible accident?
\n
\nWhy should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
\nI am but waiting for you, for an interval,
\nsomewhere very near,
\njust round the corner.
\n
\nAll is well.
\nNothing is hurt; nothing is lost.
\nOne brief moment and all will be as it was before.
\nHow we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!
\n
\nHenry Scott-Holland, 1847-1918<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n My Soulmate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n I still say I Love You,
\nBut now there’s no reply.
\nI always feel your presence
\nAs if you never left my side.
\n
\nI remember your comforting voice.
\nNow there’s not a sound.
\nOnly echoes from the past
\nFollow me around.
\n
\nYou’re always by my side,
\nBut I can’t hold your hand.
\nThe reason why God took you
\nI find hard to understand.
\n
\nSummer days seem much shorter.
\nDark nights just linger on.
\nDreams turn into nightmares
\nWhen the one you love has gone.
\n
\nBut real love never fades.
\nIt still burns like the sun.
\nAlthough they’re far away,
\nThose memories go on and on.
\n
\nHer spirit will never die
\nIt shines like the stars.
\nI know you’re sleeping in heaven,
\nBut you’re living in my heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Theodor Fontane, 1819-1898<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n On pain<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
\nyour understanding.<\/p>
\n Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its
\nheart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n And could you keep your heart in wonder at the
\ndaily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem
\nless wondrous than your joy;<\/p>
\n And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
\neven as you have always accepted the seasons that
\npass over your fields.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n And you would watch with serenity through the
\nwinters of your grief.<\/p>
\n Much of your pain is self-chosen.<\/p>
\n It is the bitter potion by which the physician within
\nyou heals your sick self.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy
\nin silence and tranquillity:<\/p>
\n For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by
\nthe tender hand of the Unseen,<\/p>
\n And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has
\nbeen fashioned of the clay which the Potter has
\nmoistened with His own sacred tears.<\/p><\/p>\n\n\n\n Theodor Storm, 1817-1888<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n On the Death of the Beloved<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Though we need to weep your loss,
\nYou dwell in that safe place in our hearts,
\nWhere no storm or night or pain can reach you.
\n
\nYour love was like the dawn
\nBrightening over our lives
\nAwakening beneath the dark
\nA further adventure of colour.
\n
\nThe sound of your voice
\nFound for us
\nA new music
\nThat brightened everything.
\n
\nJohn O’Donohue, 1956-2008<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Whatever you enfolded in your gaze
\nQuickened in the joy of its being;
\nYou placed smiles like flowers
\nOn the altar of the heart.
\nYour mind always sparkled
\nWith wonder at things.
\n
\nThough your days here were brief,
\nYour spirit was live, awake, complete.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We look towards each other no longer
\nFrom the old distance of our names;
\nNow you dwell inside the rhythm of breath,
\nAs close to us as we are to ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
\nWe know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,
\nSmiling back at us from within everything
\nTo which we bring our best refinement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Let us not look for you only in memory,
\nWhere we would grow lonely without you.
\nYou would want us to find you in presence,
\nBeside us when beauty brightens,
\nWhen kindness glows
\nAnd music echoes eternal tones.
\n
\nWhen orchids brighten the earth,
\nDarkest winter has turned to spring;
\nMay this dark grief flower with hope
\nIn every heart that loves you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n May you continue to inspire us:
\n
\nTo enter each day with a generous heart.
\nTo serve the call of courage and love
\nUntil we see your beautiful face again
\nIn that land where there is no more separation,
\nWhere all tears will be wiped from our mind,
\nAnd where we will never lose you again.
\n
\nJohn O\u2019Donohue, 1956-2008<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n After Death<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now while my lips are living
\nTheir words must stay unsaid,
\nAnd will my soul remember
\nTo speak when I am dead?
\n
\nYet if my soul remembered
\nYou would not heed it, dear,
\nFor now you must not listen,
\nAnd then you could not hear.
\n
\nSara Teasdale, 1884-1933
\n
\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n W.S. Merwin, 1927-2019<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Consolation<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Comfort yourself, the hours hurry,
\nAnd what may push you.
\nEven the worst cannot stay
\nAnd another day is coming.
\n
\nIn the eternal coming, waning,
\nHappiness, like pain,
\nAnd also find cheerful pictures
\nYour way back to you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Wait, hope. Not in vain
\nIf you count the hours of stroke:
\nChange is the lot of life,
\nAnd – another day is coming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Theodor Fontane, 1819-1998<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n For Katrina’s sun dial<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Time is too slow for those who wait,
\nToo swift for those who fear,
\nToo long for those who grieve,
\nToo short for those who rejoice,
\nBut for those who love, time is
\nEternity.
\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Theo. F., 1819-1888<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n If Death is kind<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Autoplay next video Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning,
\nWe will come back to earth some fragrant night,
\nAnd take these lanes to find the sea, and bending
\nBreathe the same honeysuckle, low and white.
\n
\nWe will come down at night to these resounding beaches
\nAnd the long gentle thunder of the sea,
\nHere for a single hour in the wide starlight
\nWe shall be happy, for the dead are free.
\n
\n\u00a0
\n
\nSara Teasdale, 1884-1933<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Countee Cullen, 1903-1946<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n \u201cHope\u201d is the thing with feathers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHope\u201d is the thing with feathers -
\nThat perches in the soul -
\nAnd sings the tune without the words -
\nAnd never stops – at all –<\/p>\n\n\n\n Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n Remember<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Christina Rossetti, 1830-1894<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n The loss of Love<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n All through an empty place I go,
\nAnd find her not in any room;
\nThe candles and the lamps I light
\nGo down before a wind of gloom.
\nThick-spraddled lies the dust about,
\nA fit, sad place to write her name
\nOr draw her face the way she looked
\nThat legendary night she came.
\n
\nThe old house crumbles bit by bit;
\nEach day I hear the ominous thud
\nThat says another rent is there
\nFor winds to pierce and storms to flood.
\n
\nMy orchards groan and sag with fruit;
\nWhere, Indian-wise, the bees go round;
\nI let it rot upon the bough;
\nI eat what falls upon the ground.
\n
\nThe heavy cows go laboring
\nIn agony with clotted teats;
\nMy hands are slack; my blood is cold;
\nI marvel that my heart still beats.
\n
\nI have no will to weep or sing,
\nNo least desire to pray or curse;
\nThe loss of love is a terrible thing;
\nThey lie who say that death is worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Augustinus, 345-430<\/em> (A.D.)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n \u201cMama\u201d never forgets her birds \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mama never forgets her birds,
\nThough in another tree\u2014
\nShe looks down just as often
\nAnd just as tenderly
\nAs when her little mortal nest
\nWith cunning care she wove\u2014
\nIf either of her “sparrows fall,”
\nShe “notices,” above.
\n
\n\u00a0
\n
\nEmily Dickinson, 1830-1886<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n R. M. Rilke, 1875-1926<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n When Great Trees Fall<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n When great trees fall,
\n<\/span>rocks on distant hills shudder,
\n<\/span>lions hunker down
\n<\/span>in tall grasses,
\n<\/span>and even elephants
\n<\/span>lumber after safety.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n When great trees fall
\n<\/span>in forests,
\n<\/span>small things recoil into silence,
\n<\/span>their senses
\n<\/span>eroded beyond fear.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n When great souls die,
\n<\/span>the air around us becomes
\n<\/span>light, rare, sterile.
\n<\/span>We breathe, briefly.
\n<\/span>Our eyes, briefly,
\n<\/span>see with
\n<\/span>a hurtful clarity.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
\n<\/span>examines,
\n<\/span>gnaws on kind words
\n<\/span>unsaid,
\n<\/span>promised walks
\n<\/span>never taken.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n Great souls die and
\n<\/span>our reality, bound to
\n<\/span>them, takes leave of us.
\n<\/span>Our souls,
\n<\/span>dependent upon their
\n<\/span>nurture,
\n<\/span>now shrink, wizened.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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