Words about death

Thanks for sharing this. It is useful to read encouraging or even just understanding words when you are grieving.

I often think of the words of Kahlil Gibran about children, something about sending arrows, but might have got that wrong.

However his writing on death, I do have a bit of a problem with.
I would happily acknowledge the words to my own passing, but I am not so easy to attach them to my DS2, who died by his own hand (as the poetic term puts it)

Life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only a horizon, and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.

I discovered this written on the back of a photograph sent by my mother to my late father during the war. I hope it bought her some comfort. He was killed at the end of 1942 and the photo presumably was returned with his effects.

Niggly, that is lovely. I have copied it into my book of quotes that are so comforting to read now and again.

Oh good Af, I'm so glad you liked it. I too find it comforting when I think about them, as we all do about our loved ones from time to time.

So very very sorry to read what you have gone through Phoenix. I love Kahlil Gibran's words on children, that we are the bows & they are the arrows , & the line that says 'we can give them our love but not our thoughts ' The one written about joy & sorrow is also very poignant. They and several other subjects are all in his book called 'The Prophet'

Thank you norose4 I occasionally dip into The Prophet.

We had this poem at my beloved stepfathers funeral, he was a pilot.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air… .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Although he flew executive jets, for his own personal pleasure he had a Fornier RF5(sp?) , a motorised glider.

He was a bad influence in some ways, as if I "fancied" a day off school, he and I would go flying, a tiny little plane, 2 seater, one behind the other, perspex "lid" that you pulled over and fastened with the sort of bolt that you see on a toilet door! We used to refer to it as the Airfix Kit, as when it was first delivered, you could still smell the glue!

We would fly over the Buckinghamshire countryside, with the stereo (old fashioned 8 track cartridge thing) playing, occasional aerobatics, ( mildly alarming if performed without prior warning, especially one called the barrel roll!) and even on some mad days "pop over" to Le Touquet for lunch!

That poem took me straight back to school, it conjures up such a picture.

It does, doesn't it midgey especially if you have flown in light aircraft, although it was written by a fighter pilot.

I was told it was found amongst the belongings of a pilot who was killed during the Second World War.

Just catching up on threads after our holidays.

I love Khalil Gibran's writings - we had the reading about Joy and Sorrow at my DD2's funeral and I then gave a eulogy in which I referred to her as 'Our delight'.

I do believe there is profound truth in this:

On Joy and Sorrow
Kahlil Gibran

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
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.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

I like this quote from Wordsworth:
"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar" ............
And later :
" Hence in a season of calm weather
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. "