Poems About Death and Inspirational Death Quotes for Grieving and Healing

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to 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 you always used.
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. Pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household word
that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all that it ever meant.
It is the same that it ever was.
There is absolute unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am but waiting for you.
For an interval.
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.

All is well.

Funeral Death Poem by Henry Scott Holland ~ 1847-1918
Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral ~ London. UK

1. And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I have loved long since and lost awhile. - John Henry Newman
2. Death is nothing else but going home to God, the bond of love will be unbroken for all eternity. - Mother Teresa
3. Don't be dismayed at goodbyes, a farewell is necessary before you can meet again and meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends. - Richard Bach
4. For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. - William Penn
5. Goodbyes are not forever.
Goodbyes are not the end.
They simply mean I'll miss you
Until we meet again!
(- Author Unknown)
6. If tears could build a stairway,
And memories a lane,
I'd walk right up to Heaven
And bring you home again.
(~Author Unknown)
7. Life is eternal and love is immortal; And death is only a horizon, And a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight. - Rossiter W. Raymond
8. Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal. - From a headstone in Ireland
9. God pours life into death and death into life without a drop being spilled. - Author Unknown
10. Death ends a life, not a relationship. - Jack Lemmon
11. Love is stronger than death even though it can't stop death from happening, but no matter how hard death tries it can't separate people from love. It can't take away our memories either. In the end, life is stronger than death. - Author Unknown
12. Thinking and talking about death need not be morbid; they may be quite the opposite. Ignorance and fear of death overshadow life, while knowing and accepting death erases this shadow. - Lily Pincus
13. To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die. -Thomas Campbell
14. There are things that we don't want to happen but have to accept, things we don't want to know but have to learn, and people we can't live without but have to let go. - Author Unknown
15. When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure. - Author Unknown
16. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. - Kahlil Gibran
17. Love here on earth
Love beyond the grave
There are no roads
My love for you can't pave.
(- T. Sachs)
18. May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be ever at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face
and the rain fall softly on your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of his hand.
(- Irish Blessing)
19. Oh heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains. - Kahlil Gibran
20. Perhaps they are not the stars, but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy. - Author Unknown
21. The caterpillar dies so the butterfly could be born. And, yet, the caterpillar lives in the butterfly and they are but one. So, when I die, it will be that I have been transformed from the caterpillar of earth to the butterfly of the universe. - John Harricharan
22. Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality. - Emily Dickinson
23. When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the soul laughs for what it has found. - Sufi aphorism
24. While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil. - John Taylor
25. You and I will meet again,
When we're least expecting it,
One day in some far off place,
I will recognize your face,
I won't say goodbye my friend,
For you and I will meet again.
(- Tom Petty)

Image Courtesy of: http://pdphoto.org/

1. After desolation, grief brings back our humanity. - Mason Cooley
2. Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal. - Author Unknown
3. Friendship doubles our joy and divides our grief. - Swedish Proverb
4. Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break. - William Shakespeare
5. Grief is itself a medicine. - William Cowper
6. Grief is the price we pay for love. - Elizabeth II
7. He that conceals his grief finds no remedy for it. - Turkish Proverb
8. I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge - myth is more potent than history - dreams are more powerful than facts - hope always triumphs over experience - laughter is the cure for grief - love is stronger than death. - Robert Fulghum
9. I still miss those I loved who are no longer with me but I find I am grateful for having loved them. The gratitude has finally conquered the loss. - Rita Mae Brown
10. If you suppress grief too much, it can well redouble. - Moliere
11. Instead of weeping when a tragedy occurs in a songbird's life, it sings away its grief. I believe we could well follow the pattern of our feathered friends. - Anonymous
12. Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how. - James Russell Lowell
13. No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. - C.S. Lewis
14. One joy shatters a hundred griefs. - Chinese Proverb
15. Sorrow is like a precious treasure, shown only to friends. - African proverb
16. Suppressed grief suffocates, it rages within the breast, and is forced to multiply its strength. - Ovid
17. Missing someone gets easier every day because even though it's one day further from the last time you saw each other, it's one day closer to the next time you will.
- Author Unknown
18. Tearless grief bleeds inwardly. - Christian Nevell Bovee
19. Tears are the silent language of grief. - Voltaire
20. The caterpillar dies so the butterfly could be born. And, yet, the caterpillar lives in the butterfly and they are but one. So, when I die, it will be that I have been transformed from the caterpillar of earth to the butterfly of the universe. - John Harricharan
21. The cure for grief is motion. - Elbert Hubbard
22. The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief - But the pain of grief is only a shadow when compared with the pain of never risking love. - Hilary Stanton Zunin
23. There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love. - Washington Irving
24. Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. - Blaise Pascal
25. Time is a physician that heals every grief. - Diphilus
26. To bury grief plant a seed. - German Proverb
27. We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. - Kenji Miyazawa
28. When the heart grieves over what is has lost, the spirit rejoices over what it has left. - Sufi Epigram

Image Courtesy of: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Water_drop_001.jpg

I am not gone
I remain here beside you
Just in a different form
Look for me in your heart
And there you will find me
in our love which forever lives on

In those moments when you feel alone
Look for me in your thoughts
And there you will find me
in sweet memories that burn strong

Every time a tear
Forms in your beautiful eyes
Look up to the heavens
And there you will see me
Smiling down from God's glorious skies

~By Injete Chesoni
Image and Poetry from: http://poetry-and-art-by-injete-chesoni.blogspot.com

Death is a brief separation
A temporary pain
Grieve not my dear
The sun will shine again
Death separates our bodies
But our hearts remain the same
And the memories of our love
Will soothe away your pain
And carry you over
Until we meet again.

Image and Poetry from: http://poetry-and-art-by-injete-chesoni.blogspot.com/

This lens was written to bring comfort to the grieving. One of the moments when bereaved people need comfort most is during the funeral. While many religious services allow for this during the sermon or homily the person reading the eulogy or funeral speech can also include words of comfort for the bereaved. Here are a few comforting funeral quotes which can be used in a eulogy speech.

1. What the caterpillar perceives is the end;
to the butterfly is just the beginning.
Everything that has a beginning has an ending.
Make your peace with that and all will be well
- Buddhist Saying
2. Death--the last sleep? No, the final awakening. - Walter Scott
3. God shall wipe all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. - Bible Quote, Revelation 21:4
4. We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give. - Winston Churchill
5. What the heart has once known, it shall never forget. - Author unknown
6. Say not in grief that she is no more
but say in thankfulness that she was
A death is not the extinguishing of a light,
but the putting out of the lamp
because the dawn has come.
- Rabindranath Tagore
7. Say not in grief he is no more - but live in thankfulness that he was. - Hebrew Proverb
8. What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us. - Helen Keller
9. The song is ended, but the melody lingers on. - Irving Berlin
10. I fall asleep in the full and certain hope
That my slumber shall not be broken;
And that, though I be all-forgetting,
Yet shall I not be all-forgotten,
But continue that life in the thoughts and deeds
of those I have loved.
-Samuel Butler
11. Grieve not, nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk of me as if I were beside you there. - Isla Paschal Richardson

I would like to end this lens with famous words from Ralph Waldo Emerson on the definition of a successful life.

To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better
whether by a healthy child, a garden patch,
or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier because
you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson