Posts in At the Funeral Home
It is Hard to Sing of Oneness...

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

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At the Cemetery, At the Funeral Home, At The Funeral Home, At The BedsideAmy CunninghamFinal Resting Place
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

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At Home, At The Bedside, At the Cemetery, At the Funeral Home, At The Funeral Home, Burial, Green Burial, Last BreathAmy CunninghamAfter Death, Commemorative Event, Final Resting Place
Excerpt from "The Little Prince"

If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-blossom with flowers.

And at night you will look up at the stars. Where I live, everything is so small that I cannot show you where my star is to be found. It is better like that. My star will just be one of the stars, for you. And so you will love to watch all of the stars in the heavens. They will be your friends.

All men have the stars, but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travellers, these stars are guides. For others, they are no more than little lights in the sky.

But all these stars are silent. You – you alone – will have the stars as no one else has them and in one of the stars, I shall be living. In one of them, I shall be laughing when you look at the sky at night.

And when your sorrow is comforted, for time soothes all sorrows, you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, just for that pleasure.'

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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At Home, At The Bedside, At the Cemetery, At the Funeral Home, Physical Gathering, Living Memorial, Holidays, First Year MilestonesAmy CunninghamAt Death, Final Resting Place, Final Resting, First Year Milestones, After Death, First Anniversary, Commemorative Event
Blessed Are Those Who Give Meaning to Our Lives

Blessed are those who give meaning to our lives;

holy and precious is the example they leave behind.

We pray: May our sorrows diminish as we recall their strength.

May their wisdom protect us and help us to live.

Let our grief be transformed into tenderness for those who are still with us.

-- Jewish prayer

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At The Bedside, At the Cemetery, At the Crematorium, At the Funeral Home, Burial, Group Readiness, Immediately After Death, Inurnment, Physical GatheringAmy CunninghamFinal Resting Place, After Death, Commemorative Event, Moving The Body
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

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At the Cemetery, At The Funeral Home, At the Funeral Home, Birthdays, Burial, Group ReadinessAmy Cunningham
I Carry Your Heart

I carry your heart with me (I carry it in

My heart) I am never without it (anywhere

I go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

By only me is your doing, my darling

I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) I want

No world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

And it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

And whatever a sun will always sing is you

Here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

And the sky of a tree called life; which grows

Higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

And this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)

-- ee cummings

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At the Cemetery, At the Crematorium, At the Funeral Home, At The Bedside, At Home, Burial, Immediately After Death, Living MemorialAmy CunninghamCommemorative Event
How Do I Love Thee?

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning,  Sonnet 43

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Living Memorial, At Home, At the Crematorium, At the Funeral HomeAmy CunninghamBefore Death, Commemorative Event
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

 

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At the Crematorium, At The Crematorium, At The Funeral Home, At the Funeral Home, At HomeAmy CunninghamCommemorative Event