Funeral Poems

A life well lived

Is a precious gift of hope

And strength and grace

From someone who has made

Our world a brighter, better place.

It's filled with moments both sweet and sad,

With smiles and sometimes tears,

With friendships formed and good times shared

And laughter through the years.

A life well lived is a legacy

Of joy and pride and pleasure.

A loving, lasting, memory

Our grateful hearts will always treasure.

That person is a success

Who has lived well,

Laughed often and loved much;

Who has gained the respect

Of intelligent adults

And the love of children;

Who has filled his niche

And accomplished his task;

Who has never lacked appreciation

Of Earth's beauty

Or failed to express it;

Who leaves the world better

Than he found it;

Who looked for the best in others

And gave the best he had.

Do not stand at my grave and weep;

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am the thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on the snow.

I am the gentle autumn's rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die.

I have slipped away into another room.

I am I, and you are you…

Whatever we were to each other, that we are still,

Call me by my old familiar name

Speak of me in the easy way that you always used too.

Put no difference into your tone,

Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow,

Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me,

Let my name be ever the household word it always was,

Let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant,

It is the same as it ever was,

There is absolutely unbroken continuity

What is death but a negligible accident?

Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you, for an interval,

Somewhere very near,

All is well.

One night I dreamed I was

walking along the beach with the Lord.

I turned and looked back, and saw all the

footprints I had taken in my life.

Most of the time there were two sets of footprints in

the sand - mine and the Lord's.

But I noticed that sometimes there

was only one set of footprints, and

these were the times when the

path was steep and rough.

So I asked Him, "I thought you would

always be with me, Lord.

But at the most difficult times in my life,

I see only one set of footprints.

Why did you leave me when I

needed you most?"

The Lord answered gently, "I was always

with you, my child.

Where you see just one set of footprints,

I was carrying you."

God is good and grief grows old,

Time plays its gentle part

Laying healing hands upon the red wounds of the heart.

The secret scars grow fainter with the passing years,

Faith returns and joy comes back to wipe away the tears.

Gleams of sunlight steal in at the windows of the mind;

Hope revives, the future beckons. Once again we find

Life has something sweet to offer.

Grey skies turn to gold,

Memories remain, but sorrows end

And grief grows old.

Miss me but let me go.

When I come to the end of the road

And the sun has set for me,

I want no rites in a gloom-filled room;

Why cry for a soul set free?

Miss me a little, but not too long,

And not with your head bowed low.

Remember the love that we once shared,

Miss me but let me go.

For this is a journey that we all must take

And each must go alone.

It's all part of the Master's plan,

A step on the road to home.

When you are lonely and sick at heart,

Go to friends you know

And bury your sorrow in doing good deeds,

Miss me dear family, but let me go.

God grant that I may live to fish

Until my dying day.

And when it comes to my last cast

Then I most humbly pray

When in the Lord's safe-landing net

I'm peacefully asleep

That in His mercy I be judged

As big enough to keep.

Think of me as one at rest, for me you should not weep;

I have no pain, no troubled thoughts for I am just asleep.

The living, thinking me that was, is now forever still,

And life goes on without me, as time forever will.

If your heart is heavy now because I've gone away,

Dwell not long upon it friend, for none of us can stay.

Those of you who liked me, I sincerely thank you all

And those of you who loved me, I thank you most of all.

The answer to life's riddle, in life I never knew,

I go with hope that now I will, and even so will you.

Oh, foolish, foolish me that was, I who was so small,

To have wondered, even worried at the mystery of it all.

And in my fleeting life span, as time went rushing by,

I found some time to hesitate, to laugh, to love, to cry.

What matters now if time began, if time will ever cease,

I was here, I used it all, and now, I am at peace.

Remember me when I am gone away,

Gone far away into the silent land;

When you can no longer hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

You tell me of our future that you planned:

Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

For if the darkness and corruption leave

A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

Than that you should remember me and be sad.

If I should ever leave you whom I love,

To go along the Silent Way, grieve not

nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk

of me as if I were beside you

I'd come, I'd come, could I but find a way!

But would not tears and grief be barriers?

And when you hear a song I used to sing,

or see a bird I loved - let not the thought

of me sad, for I am loving you

just as I always have… you were so good to me.

So many things I wanted still to do,

so many things to say to you

Remember that I did not fear - it was

Just leaving you I could not bear to face

We cannot see beyond… but this I know

I loved you so - 'Twas Heaven here with you.

If I should go before the rest of you

Break not a flower, nor inscribe a stone;

Nor when I'm gone speak in a Sunday voice,

But be the usual selves that I have known.

Weep if you must,

Parting is hell.

But life goes on,

So sing as well.

Now I have lost you, I must scatter

All of you on the henceforth;

Not that to me it can ever matter

But it's only fair to the rest of the earth.

Now especially, when it is winter

And the sun's not half as bright as he was,

Who wouldn't be glad to find a splinter

That once was you, in the frozen grass?

Snowflakes too, will be softer feathered,

Clouds perhaps will be whiter plumed;

Rain, whose brilliance you caught and gathered,

Purer silver have reassumed.

Farewell, sweet dust; I was never a miser:

Once for a minute I made you mine:

Now you are gone, I am none the wiser

But the leaves of the willow are bright as wine.

We live in deeds, not years;

In thoughts, not breaths;

In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time in heart-throbs.

He most lives

Who thinks most,

Feels the noblest,

Acts the best.

Think of me as one at rest

For me you should not weep,

I have no pain, no troubled thoughts

For I am just asleep.

Those of you in this chapel who liked me

I sincerely thank you all

And those of you who loved me

I thank you most of all.

And in the fleeting life-span

As time went rushing by,

I found some time to hesitate

To laugh, to love, yes, even to cry.

Matters it now if time began,

If time will ever cease

I was here, I used it all

And now dear friends, I am at peace.

In one sense there is no death.

The life of a soul on earth lasts beyond her departure.

You will always feel that life touching,

that voice speaking to you,

that spirit looking out of other eyes,

talking to you in the familiar things she touched,

worked with, loved as familiar friends.

She lives on in your life and in the lives of all others that knew her.

When I am gone

Cry for me a little

Think of me sometimes

But not too much

Think of me now and again

As I was in life

At some moments it's pleasant to recall

But not for long

Leave me in peace

And I shall leave you in peace

And while you live

Let your thoughts be with the living.

You can shed tears that she is gone

or you can smile because she has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray that she'll come back

or you can open your eyes and see all she's left.

Your heart can be empty because you can't see her

or you can be full of the love you shared.

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday

or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday.

You can remember her and only that she's gone

or you can cherish her memory and let it live on.

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back

or you can do what she'd want:

smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

I give you this one thought to keep

I am with you still, I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow

I am the softly falling snow.

I am the gentle showers of rain.

I am fields of ripening grain.

I am in the morning hush,

I am in the graceful rush

Of beautiful birds in circling flight.

I am the starshine of the night.

I am the flowers that bloom

I am in a quiet room

I am the birds that sing

I am in each lovely thing

Do not stand at my grave and cry.

I am not there. I did not die.

I'd like the memory of me

to be a happy one.

I'd like to leave an afterglow

of smiles when life is done.

I'd like to leave an echo

whispering softly down the ways -

Of happy times and laughing times

and bright and sunny days.

I'd like the tears of those who grieve

to dry before the sun

of happy memories

that I leave when life is done.

If you believe that we have souls

Then you believe that life is eternal.

Our bodies may give up but we take another form.

Just because our physical form is now redundant

That does not mean that our identity has died with it.

Your life on earth is symbolized by the life of a caterpillar.

From larva, you grow into a caterpillar, you exist in that form

And then one day you build a chrysalis.

The chrysalis symbolizes our 'death'.

The caterpillar does not know that when she emerges from the

chrysalis she will become a butterfly, just as we don't know

When we die we will become spirits.

Like the caterpillar in her chrysalis, in death we change form.

We discard the obsolete form of the caterpillar because it is a

form we no longer need. And so we emerge as a butterfly.

The caterpillar is not dead, he has simply changed his form.

The butterfly, like the spirit emerging from the chrysalis,

Free and beautiful, is now able to go places, it could never go before.

The butterfly is the resurrected spirit of the caterpillar.

When we grieve it is for ourselves, for the life we now have

To live without them.

We should not mourn their passing but celebrate it.

The grave is for you, and not for them.

Funerals, graves, crems - all of these are for the living;

They are symbols of the life we have here on earth.

Do not look for the person who has passed away,

For they aren't there.

You inspire thoughts within me

And fill my every day,

You can create the world in which I live

All barriers fall away.

You can share my every moment,

There are times you know no rest.

You give yourself in measure,

In fullness never less.

You can continue on regardless,

Never once do you complain.

Your devotion seems unending,

Though I'm sure you felt the strain.

You give my life great meaning,

I learn from all you teach.

There is nothing you deny me,

You put all within my reach.

I have come to love and cherish,

All things we share and do.

And will shape my future in your light,

Trying always to be like you.

There are similar Mothers everywhere,

But nowhere are there two.

You're the only one where I'm concerned,

For love is all of you.

May the road rise up to meet you

May the wind be always at your back

May the sun shine warm upon your face

And the rain fall soft upon your fields

And until we meet again

May God hold you in the palm of his Hand.

It can be any time or place

When suddenly they start -

those memories of yesterday

that so delight the heart.

They're brought about by many things:

A treasured photograph,

A song's familiar melody,

A child's delighted laugh.

They bring a gladness to the heart,

A warmness to the soul -

They take an ordinary day

And somehow make it whole.

Those precious, priceless memories

That time cannot destroy -

They come and go and leave

A gentle, sentimental joy.

A red petal dropped from the last crimson rose,

It seemed that the sky turned to gray,

As around the old garden,

The sad whisper went "The summer has ended today"

A bird voiced its grief from the shade of the hedge,

As the petals fell down on the grass,

But the death of a rose cannot shatter our faith,

Nature works in mysterious ways.

For a rose must die to awaken again

in the glory of blue summer days,

So when the summer of living is spent,

Should we tremble in autumns cold breath,

No - there is not need when all nature insists,

after winter comes spring.

I would rather have one little rose

From the garden of a friend

Than to have the choicest flowers

When my stay on earth must end.

I would rather have one pleasant word

In kindness said to me

Than flattery when my heart is still

And life has ceased to be.

I would rather have a loving smile

From friends I know are true

Than tears shed round my casket

When this world I bid adieu.

To dream a dream of a distant shore,

where life unfolds in peace and grace,

Where friends and partners move in eternal love and

never a bitter word takes place…

This distant shore, where can it be; is it just beyond the next bend

or far across some far-off sea?

Does it really exist at all or is it all a wishful illusion.

A wondrous place which we seek when all is dark and

reality is just an intrusion.

Life is full of lovely things and endless gifts of wonder and of grace.

To live a life in this mode makes the world a most wondrous place.

But despair and pain and endless grief stand in silent

lines awaiting in the gloom

patiently watching and waiting to enter your heart

whenever they find the room

perhaps the dream of a distant shore will always be a far-off vision.

But hold it fast, clasp it tight…

And make your own decision...

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth

And danced the skies on laughter silvered wings

Sunward I have climbed and joined the tumbling mirth,

of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things.

You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung

high in the sunlit silence hovering there,

I've chased the shouting wind along and flung.

My eager craft through foothills of air.

Up, up the only delirious burning blue

I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,

where never lark nor even eagle flew

And while with silent, lifting mind I've trod

The high untrespassed sanctity of space,

Put out my hand and touch the face of God.

We little knew that morning that God was going to call your name.

In life we loved you dearly, in death we do the same.

It broke our hearts to lose you, but you did not go alone,

For part of us went with you, the day God called you home.

You left us peaceful memories, your love is still our guide,

And though we cannot see you, you are always at our side.

Our family chain is broken and nothing seems the same,

But as God calls us one by one… the chain will link again.

I stand on the seashore watching a ship in the bay.

She lifts anchor, spreads her sails to the breeze

and starts out upon the ocean.

She has new beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until

she hangs like a speck of cloud where the sea and sky meet.

Someone at my side says "There, she's gone!"

Gone where? Gone from sight, over the horizon, that's all.

But at that moment beyond the horizon,

there are others watching her coming and

other souls who take up the glad shout,

"There, she comes"

Some time at even when the tide is low,

I shall slip my moorings and sail away.

With no response to the friendly hail

Of kindred craft in the busy bay.

In the quiet hush of the twilight pale,

When the night stoops down to embrace the day,

And voices call in the water's flow,

Some time at even when the tide is low

I shall slip my moorings and sail away.

If you who have watched me sail away

Will miss my craft from the busy bay:

Some friendly barques that have anchored near,

Some loving souls that my heart holds dear

In silent sorrow will drop a tear.

But I shall have peacefully furled my sail

In moorings sheltered from wind and gale,

And greeted the friends who have sailed before,

On the unknown sea to the unseen shore.

Don't grieve for me, for now I'm free

I'm following the path God laid for me

I took His hand when I heard Him call,

I turned my back and left it all.

To laugh, to love, to work or play.

Tasks left undone must stay that way,

I found my peace on my last day.

If my parting has left a void,

then fill it with remembered joy.

A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss,

Yes, these things I too will miss.

Be not burdened with times of sorrow,

I wish you the graces of tomorrow.

My life's been full, I savoured much,

Loving parents and family, good friends,

Good times, a loved one's touch.

Perhaps my time seemed all too brief,

Don't lengthen it now with undue grief.

Lift up your heart and share with me,

God wanted me now, he set me free.

Gladness after sorrow

Sunshine after rain

Harvest after seed time

Comfort after pain

Blossom after pruning

Victory after strife

As the way of nature

So the way of life.

Don't sigh for me

Don't cry for me

I've lived my life most happily.

And these I leave to those I love -

The sun, the moon, the stars above,

the joy of life, and in full measure

Good luck, good health,

All these to treasure.

And think of me when the nights are long

and hear my music in a song.

So laugh for me

So sing for me

And all your days live joyously.

Look at the sun, the stars that shine,

Remember glories that were mine

The sweetly scented morning breeze

The whispering of the gracious trees

For when I've gone, all these remain

And in your love I live again.

Death is just another step

Along life's changing way

No more than just a gateway

To a new and better day.

And parting from our loved ones

Is much easier to bear

When we know that they are waiting

For us to join them there

For it is on the wings of death

That the living soul takes flight

Into the promised Land of God

Where there shall be no night.

I am home in heaven dear ones,

Oh so happy and so bright

There is perfect joy and beauty

In this everlasting light.

All the pain and grief is over

Every restless tossing past

I am now at peace forever

Safely home in heaven at last.

We cannot lose the ones we love,

For even when they are gone

We see them in the sunlight

That makes the day so bright,

In the flowers of the springtime

And the stars at night.

For everything there is a season;

A time for every occupation under heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;

A time for planting, and a time for uprooting;

A time for tears, a time for laughter;

A time for mourning, a time for dancing;

A time for searching, a time for losing;

A time for conflict, a time for peace.

Grieve for me, for I would grieve for you.

Then brush away the sorrow and the tears,

Life is not over, but begins anew,

with courage you must greet the coming years.

To live forever in the past is wrong;

it can only cause you misery and pain.

Dwell not on memories overlong

with others you must share and care again.

Reach out and comfort those who comfort you;

recall the years, but only for a while.

Nurse not your loneliness; but live again

Forget not. Remember with a smile.

You cannot say, you must not say,

That he is dead. He is just away!

With a cheery smile

and a wave of a hand,

He has wandered into an unknown land

and left us dreaming how very fair

it needs must be, since he lingers there;

So think of him faring on, as dear

In love of there

as the love of here

Think of him still the same, and say

He is not dead, he is just away.

The smoke drifts lazily as it moves through the air

until it finally vanishes into the atmosphere.

The sun touched my face and I opened my eyes

its time to say those awful goodbyes.

My heart breaks and the tears flow

why oh why, did you have to go?

Together in family and friendship, we've been a team.

Goodbye my brother and friend I say from my heart

at last its come, our time to part

I'll remember you in the evening air

and make-believe sometimes, you're still here.

I'll walk beside you through the world today,

While dreams and songs and flowers bless your way,

I'll look into your eyes and hold your hand,

I'll walk beside you through the golden land.

I'll walk beside you through the world tonight,

Beneath the starry skies ablaze with light,

And in your heart love's tender words I'll hide,

I'll walk beside through the even tide.

I'll walk beside you through the passing years,

Through days of cloud and sunshine, joy and tears,

And when the great call comes, the sun set gleams,

I'll walk beside you through the land of dreams.

In a harbour two ships sailed:

one setting forth on a voyage,

the others coming home to port.

Everyone cheered the ship going out,

but the ship sailing in was scarcely noticed.

To this a wise man said

"Do not rejoice over a ship setting out to sea,

for you cannot know what terrible storms it may encounter,

and what fearful dangers it may have to endure.

Rejoice rather over the ship that has safely reached port and brings its

passenger's home in peace."

And this is the way of the world.

When a child is born, all rejoice: when someone dies, all weep.

We should do the opposite.

For no-one can tell what trials and travails await a newborn child:

but when a mortal dies in peace, we should rejoice.

When I come to the end of the road,

and the sun has set for me,

I want no rites in a gloom filled room

Why cry for a soul set free?

Miss me a little, but not too long,

And not with your head bowed low.

Remember the love and friendship that we once shared,

Miss me, but let me go.

For this is a journey that we all must take,

And each must go alone,

It's all part of a greater plan,

A step on the road to home.

When you are lonely and sick at heart,

Remember the people you know

Be thankful for life and its memories,

Dear family and friends, Love me, but let me go.

God looked around his garden

And found an empty space,

He then looked down upon the earth,

And found a tired face.

He put his arms around you

And lifted you to rest,

The garden must be beautiful,

Because he only takes the best.