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."

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—whioh are eternal.
Hear this prayer for your love’s sake.Amen.

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.

Beyond a wholesome discipline be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars.
You have a right to be here.
And whether it is clear to you or not,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
And whatever your labours and aspirations
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace with your soul.
With all it’s sham and drudgery and broken dreams
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

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 glint on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle Autumn rain,
I am the shining star at night,
When you awake to the morning light.

My time has come, I am at rest,
I am the sunset in the West,
I am the clouds that race above,
Where I watch over those that I love.

Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die,
So here the words that here I say,
I am the love that guides your way.

For What Is It To Die
Kahil Gibran

For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing,
but to free the breath from its restless tides,
that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you reach the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

The man who never had to toil,
Who never had to win his share
Of sun and sky and light and air,
Never became a manly man
But lived and died as he began.

Good timber does not grow in ease;
The stronger the wind, the tougher the trees;
The farther the sky, the greater the length;
The more the storm, the more the strength;
By sun and cold, by rain and snows,
In tree and man, good timber grows.

If you should forget me for a while,
And afterwards remember, do not grieve,
For if the darkness and the shadows
Leave a vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far that you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

I am standing on the sea shore,
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.
A horizon is just the limit of our sight. Lift us up, Oh Lord, that we may see further.

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.

Let me die working,
Still tackling plans unfinished, tasks undone!
Clean to its end, swift may my race be run.
No laggard steps, no faltering, no shirking;
Let me die working.

Let me die thinking,
Let me fare forth still with an open mind,
Fresh secrets to unfold, new truths to find,
My soul undimmed, alert, no question blinking;
Let me die thinking.

Let me die giving,
The substance of life, for life’s enriching;
Time, things and self on heaven converging,
No selfish thought, love redeeming, living;
Let me die giving.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

May the roads rise up to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
May the rains fall soft upon your fields
And until we meet again
May God hold you in the palm of his hand

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 a part of the Master's plan,
A step on the road to home.

When you are lonely and sick of heart,
Go to the friends we know
And bury your sorrows in doing good deeds.
Miss me - but let me go.

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 now,
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.

And in my fleeting lifespan,
as time went rushing by
I found some time to hesitate,
to laugh, to love, to cry
Matters it now if time began
If time will ever cease?
I was here, I used it all,
and now I am at peace.

When I die and leave behind
This earth I love
These trees, this sky,
The pounding sea,
The yearly hope of spring,
Cry not for me,
Rejoice.
My soul has wings
And in it’s freedom sings.

When you wake from sleep in the early morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft, starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there.
I do not sleep.