Words of Comfort

By Edgar Albert Guest
I’ll lend you for a little time
A child of Mine.” He said.
“For you to love the while he lives
And mourn for when he’s dead.
It may be six or seven year
Or twenty-two or three
But will you, till I call him back
Take care of him for Me?
He’ll bring his charms to gladden you
And should his stay be brief,
You’ll have his lovely memories
As solace for your grief.
I cannot promise he will stay
Since all from Earth return,
But there are lessons taught down there
I want the child to learn.
I’ve looked this wide world over
In my search for teacher’s true,
And from the throngs that crowd life’s lanes,
I have selected you;
Now will you give him all your love,
Nor think the labour vain
Nor hate Me when I come to call
And take him back again?
I fancied that I heard them say,
“Dear Lord, They will be done,
For all the joy Thy child shall bring,
For the risk of grief we’ll run.
We’ll shelter him with tenderness,
We’ll love him while we may,
And for the happiness we’ve known,
Forever grateful stay.
But should the angels call for him
Much sooner than we planned,
We’ll brave the bitter grief that comes
And try to understand.”

Anonymous
The death of someone we love and care about
Is like the death of part of us.
No one else will ever call out from within us
Quite the same responses, the same feelings or actions or ideas.
Their death is an ending of one part of a story.
Lord as we look back over Rose’s life
We ask what we have received, what we can appropriate
And continue on in our own lives and what must be laid to rest.
Our love for her reminds us that our sharing
In one another’s lives brings both support and pain.
Our being parted from her reminds us of our own mortality
And that your love is enduring.
We thank you that our love for Rose draws us together
And gives us a new appreciation of one another
And of the beauty and fragility of relationships
Which mirror your grace and goodness to us.
Lord, time’s tide may wash her footprints from the shore
But not our love for her nor the influence of her life upon our own
Nor the ways in which they will ever be a sign for us
Of those things which really matter – which are eternal.
Hear this prayer for your love’s sake. Amen.

For everything there is a season
a time for every occupation under heaven
a time to be born, a time to die
a time for planting, 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 loosing
a time for conflict, and a time for peace

They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old;
age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn,
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
we will remember them.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea.
But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
Turns again to home.
Twilight and evening bell,
And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
When I embark;
For though from out our bourne of Time and Place
The flood that may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilots face
When I have crossed the bar.

By Canon Henry Scott-Holland
I have only slipped away into the next room.
I am I and you are you.
Whatever we were to each other,
that we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name,
speak to me in the easy way which we always used.
Put no difference in 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, pray for me.
Let my name be the household word it always was.
Let it be spoken without effort,
without the ghost of a shadow in it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was;
there is absolute 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,
just around the corner.
All is well.
Nothing is past, nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.

Attributed to Mary Frye
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die,
I am the thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glint on snow,
When you awaken in the morning hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush,
Of quiet birds in circled flight,
I am bright stars that shine at night,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.