A Poem for someone who is greeving

[rainbowsmiles]

I saw this poem at the bookstore on the wall and I thought it was lovely so I want to share it. Its a poem for someone who has lost a loved one.

"Remembrance"

You can shed tears that she is gone, or you can smile because she has lived.

You can close your eyes and pray she'll come back or you can open your eyes and see all she has 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.

~Anonymous

[along-for-the-ride]

I would like this to be my headstone after the end of my life has come.

[hapigirl]

Good morning,
Thank you for sharing.
My hubby died in April, and I am trying to do as the poem suggests--trying to smile more

[rainbowsmiles]

I'm so sorry about your husband! Keep your chin up I know losing loved ones is very painful and I found the poem to be very comforting to me also!

[lady cop]

... by Cristina Rossetti.... Remember

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more 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 plann'd:
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 and be sad.
__________________

[theia]

Rossetti's Remember never fails to move me to tears. It' so beautiful.

[rainbowsmiles]

Thanks for sharing ladycop, that is a beautiful poem!

[lady cop]

you're welcome, i love that poem...and this one as well, by W. Auden, from 'four weddings and a funeral'--------------Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

[Tariki]

I was just browsing through a few of the threads in the Garden, and happened upon this one. Just from my own personal experience I'd just like to say that its important to feel the grief - and the loss - involved with the death of a loved one. When my own father died, apart from one brief moment, I never shed a tear. There was mum to care about...........she was slowly sliding into alzheimers. It was easy to shovel over the emotional pain with the excuse that I was caring for mum. Anyway, I believe that it was partly this repressed grief that bought me the two years of severe depression that followed a few years later - reality will have its due.

As this is a poetry forum, here are a few lines from Rainer Maria Rilke that seem appropriate.........

How dear you will be to me then, you nights
of anguish. Why didn't I kneel more deeply to accept you,
inconsolable sisters, and, surrendering, lose myself
in your loosened hair. How we squander our hours of pain.
How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration
to see if they have an end. Though they are really
seasons of us, our winter-
enduring foliage, ponds, meadows, our inborn landscape,
where birds and reed-dwelling creatures are at home.