For those of us who've lost a Mum

GraceB · 3. Nov 2016, 15:24

I found this when looking for a poem for Mum's funeral service. We're using this instead of a reading as Mum loved poetry.

She is Gone
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 will come back
Or you can open your eyes and see all that she has left
Your heart can be empty because you can't see her
Or you can be full of the love that 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 is 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 would want:
smile, open your eyes, love and go on.
David Harkins

GraceB

frogmorton · 4. Nov 2016, 04:14

Oh Grace that's lovely and so true.

Thank you for taking the time to post it ((()))

Love

Toni xxx

My brother read this at my Mum's funeral:

The Ship

#

What is dying
I am standing on the seashore, a ship sails in the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.
She is an object of beauty and I stand watching her till at last she fades on the horizon and someone at my side says: "She is gone."
Gone!
Where
Gone from my sight that is all.
She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her, and just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination.
The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her, and just at the moment when someone at my side says,
"She is gone"
there are others who are watching her coming, and other voices take up a glad shout:
"There she comes!"
and that is dying.

Bishop Brent

Extra appropriate as she had Rod Stewart's 'Sailing' as we left the crematorium.

daffy2 · 4. Nov 2016, 06:11

An apt and moving summary of the choices that face us when dealing with loss of loved one. Than you for posting Grace.
My mother's funeral was 4 years ago today, and this poem chimes with what the vicar said at the service.

stickywicket · 4. Nov 2016, 06:44

Thank you, Grace. And frog.

I first came across the David Harkins one at the funeral of a friend's son who had died far too young. I liked it instantly. It lacks the mawkishness of so many funeral 'poems'.

Then I discovered it was not written for someone's death but is actually a story of unrequited love. David Hawkins' (a former factory worker) own story is fascinating. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/sep/16/artsfeatures.poetry . This article about him contains the original version of the poem.

Frog, I've also long-liked the Bishop Brent version of death though I guess one has to have some sort of faith for it to resonate.

barbara12 · 4. Nov 2016, 14:38

Thankyou Grace and Toni ...I do love poetry and so did my brother ..he wrote one for my mums funeral over 30 years now and I still have it somewhere..

SW thanks for that... I have heard it so many times..and shocked to hear it was more a love poem..I will go and read his story..

GraceB · 4. Nov 2016, 17:00

Thanks everyone. When I found that poem I thought the words were lovely and that Mum would have appreciated them.

GraceB

Turbogran · 6. Nov 2016, 16:24

That poem is lovely Grace xx

bubbles · 6. Nov 2016, 18:42

oh Grace and Toni, they are both beautiful.
I read this to Mum, quietly, after Dads Funeral.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn 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.

Now I need to go compose myself. XX

For those of us who've lost a Mum

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