It is hard to sing of oneness when our world is not complete,
when those who have once brought wholeness to our life have gone,
and naught but memory can fill the emptiness their passing leaves behind.
But memory can tell us only what we were, in company with those we loved;
it cannot help us find what each of us,
alone, must now become.

Yet no one is really alone; those who live no more echo still within our thoughts and words,
and what they did is part of what we have become.
We do best homage to our dead when we live our lives most fully,
even in the shadow of our loss.

Mishkan HaNefesh: Machzor for the Days of Awe

-Jewish Prayer for High Holidays

Goodnight

Goodnight; ensured release,
Imperishable peace,
Have these for yours,
While sea abides, and land,
And earth’s foundations stand,
and heaven endures.

When earth’s foundations flee,
nor sky nor land nor sea
At all is found
Content you, let them burn:
It is not your concern;
Sleep on, sleep sound.

—A.E Housman

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
And I wake in the night at the least sound
In fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
Rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
Who do not tax their lives with forethought
Of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
Waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

-- Wendell Berry

Yizkor Reading

Shall I cry out in anger, O God,
Because Your gifts are mine but for a while? Shall I forget the blessing of health
The moment there is pain?

Shall I be ungrateful for the laughter,
the seasons of joy, the days of gladness,
when tears cloud my eyes and darken the world and my heart is heavy within me?

Shall I blot from my mind the love
I have rejoiced in when fate
leaves me bereft of shining presences that have lit my way through the years of companionship and affection?

Shall I, in days of adversity, fail to recall the hours of glory You once did grant me?

Shall I, in turmoil of need and anxiety,
Cease blessing You for the peace of former days? Shall the time of darkness put out for ever
The glow of light in which once I walked?

Give me the vision, O God, to see
that embedded in each of your gifts
is a core of eternity, undiminished and bright,
an eternity that survives the dread hours of affliction.

Those I have loved, though now beyond my view, Have given form and quality to my being.
They have led me into the wide universe
I continue to inhabit, and their presence

is more real to me than their absence.

What You give to me, O Lord, You never take away.
And bounties granted once Shed their radiance evermore. —by Morris Adler

At the Cemetery, At The Funeral Home, At the Funeral Home, Birthdays, Burial, Group ReadinessAmy CunninghamSeptember 19, 2018

Death is Not the End

Death is not the end

But the beginning

Of a metamorphosis.

For matter is never destroyed

Only transformed

And rearranged –

Often more perfectly.

Witness how in the moment of a caterpillar’s death

The beauty of the butterfly is born

And released from the prison of the cocoon

It flies free.

-- Peter Tatchell

Life is a Journey

Birth is a beginning
And death a destination
And life is a journey:
From childhood to maturity
And youth to age;
From innocence to awareness
And ignorance to knowing;
From foolishness to discretion
And then perhaps to wisdom.

From weakness to strength or
From strength to weakness
And often back again;
From health to sickness,
And we pray to health again.

From offence to forgiveness,
From loneliness to love,
From joy to gratitude,
From pain to compassion,
From grief to understanding,
From fear to faith.

From defeat to defeat to defeat
Until, not looking backwards or ahead,
We see that victory lies not
At some high point along the way
But in having made the journey
Step by step,
A sacred pilgrimage.
Birth is a beginning
And death a destination
And life is a journey.

--Rabbi Alvin Fine from Jewish Reform high holiday prayer book, Gates of Repentance

At Home, At the Crematorium, At The Funeral HomeKateyanne UnullisiFebruary 18, 2018Commemorative Event

Four Candles

The first candle represents our grief.
The pain of losing you is intense.
It reminds us of the depth of our love for you.
This second candle represents our courage.
To confront our sorrow,
To comfort each other,
To change our lives.
This third candle we light in your memory.
For the times we laughed,
The times we cried,
The times we were angry with each other,
The silly things you did,
The caring and joy you gave us.
This fourth candle we light for our love.
We light this candle that your light will always shine.
As we enter this holiday season and share this night of remembrance
with our family and friends.
We cherish the special place in our hearts
that will always be reserved for you.
We thank you for the gift
your living brought to each of us.
We love you.
We remember you.

-- Unknown

At the Crematorium, At The Funeral Home, At HomeKateyanne UnullisiFebruary 18, 2018Commemorative Event

His Laughter

His laughter was better than the birds in the morning,
His smile turned the edge of the wind,
His memory disarms death and charms the surly grave.
We cannot grieve for more than a little while
For he lives in the earth around us,
And laughs from the sky.

-- C. Day Lewis

At Home, At the Crematorium, At The Funeral HomeKateyanne UnullisiFebruary 18, 2018Commemorative Event

The Friend

In a circle of friends, the one who dies first
Is the friend you will never forget:
This is the death that unhinges you
From the trappings of everyday life
And makes you – suddenly – absurdly grateful
For each new breath – beginning with this one.

This is the death that could break you apart
In every way possible; that persuades you –
In memory of that friend – to turn away
From whatever refuses to speak to your heart
From whatever threatens to numb your soul
From whatever it is that revels in death.

Yet this, too, is the friend you need by your side.
Listen. Together they urge you: Live your life.

-- Alice Kavounas

At Home, At the Crematorium, At The Funeral HomeKateyanne UnullisiFebruary 18, 2018Commemorative Event

Remember Me

To the living, I am gone.
To the sorrowful, I will never return.
To the angry, I was cheated,
But to the happy, I am at peace,
And to the faithful, I have never left.
I cannot be seen, but I can be heard.
So as you stand upon a shore, gazing at a beautiful sea - remember me.
As you look in awe at a mighty forest and its grand majesty - remember me.
As you look upon a flower and admire its simplicity - remember me.
Remember me in your heart, your thoughts, and your memories of the times we
loved, the times we cried, the times we fought, the times we laughed.
For if you always think of me, I will have never gone.
-- Unknown

At Home, At the Crematorium, At The Funeral HomeKateyanne UnullisiFebruary 18, 2018Commemorative Event

Not Gone

Death has nothing to do with going away.
The sun sets
The moon sets
But they are not gone.

-- Rumi

At Home, At the Cemetery, At the Crematorium, At The Funeral HomeAmy CunninghamSeptember 21, 2017Commemorative Event

from The Tempest

We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep.

 -- William Shakespeare‘The Tempest’ Act IV, Scene I

At the Crematorium, At The Funeral HomeAmy CunninghamSeptember 21, 2017Commemorative Event

In This Short Life

In this short Life that only lasts an hour

How much - how little - is within our power

-- Emily Dickinson

At Home, At the Cemetery, At The Crematorium, At The Funeral HomeAmy CunninghamSeptember 21, 2017Commemorative Event

When a Great Soul Dies

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.

When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance,
fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance
of dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.

-- Maya Angelou

At Home, Burial, At The Funeral Home, InurnmentAmy CunninghamSeptember 18, 2017Commemorative Event, Final Resting

Prayer of Faith

We trust that beyond absence there is a presence.

That beyond the pain there can be healing.

That beyond the brokenness there can be wholeness.

That beyond the anger there may be peace.

That beyond the hurting there may be forgiveness.

That beyond the silence there may be the word.

That beyond the word there may be understanding.

That through understanding there is love.

-- Unknown

Finding You in Beauty

The rays of light filtered through

The sentinels of trees this morning.

I sat in the garden and contemplated.

The serenity and beauty

Of my feelings and surroundings

Completely captivated me.

I thought of you.

I discovered you tucked away

In the shadows of the trees.

Then, rediscovered you

In the smiles of the flowers

As the sun penetrated their petals

In the rhythm of the leaves

Falling in the garden

In the freedom of the birds

As they fly searching as you do.

I’m very happy to have found you,

Now you will never leave me

For I will always find you in the beauty of life.

-- Walter Rinder

I Shall Live Beyond Death

I shall live beyond death, and I shall sing in your ears

Even after the vast sea-wave carries me back

To the vast sea-depth.

I shall sit at your board though without a body,

And I shall go with you to your fields, a spirit invisible.

I shall come to you at your fireside, a guest unseen.

Death changes nothing but the masks that cover our faces.

The woodsman shall be still a woodsman,

The ploughman, a ploughman,

And he who sang his song to the wind shall sing it also to

              the moving spheres.

-- Kahlil Gibran, from The Garden of The Prophet

Never More Will the Wind

Never more will the wind
cherish you again,
never more will the rain.

Never more
shall we find you bright
in the snow and wind.

The snow is melted,
the snow is gone
and you are flown:

Like a bird out of our hand,
like a light out of our heart,
You are gone.

- Hilda Doolittle

The Lord's Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name,
thy kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those
who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
for ever and ever. Amen