Comforting sayings

Yes, it does sound nice, but the only thing is that at our age, the horizon is getting a lot nearer.

Exciting though to know what is beyond.

Yes, exciting but perhaps a bit frightening too? By it's very nature it is 'unknown' which is always worrying! However, we don't have any choice and it will happen to all of us one day.I used to know somebody who was always asking if ' you are saved' ?He seemed so smug.I now realise how happy that must have made him, thinking that [so maybe I shouldn't have smirked at the time.] Although smugness invites a smirk doesn't it?

Was the funeral a humanist one?

Exciting? I don't find the prospect of being dead exciting at all...

I'd love to have that confidence but I have to remain agnostic in this respect.

It is the thought of leaving behind loved ones that saddens me. I would love to know what they make of their lives.

I think it's more the prospect of finding out 'what comes after' Ana, what going through this crazy world is actually for..... as Mr Roses says 'we will understand everything/or not as the case may be' [Mr Roses is an agnostic].

Ana It's what lies beyond that is exciting. I appreciate that it is different if you believe that death is the end.

Coming back to haunt people when they least expect it sounds quite exciting!

The Sailing Ship - Bishop Charles Henry Brent (1862-1929)

What is dying?
I am standing on the seashore.
A ship sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean.
She is an object and I stand watching her
Till at last she fades from the horizon,
And someone at my side says, “She is gone!” Gone where?
Gone from my sight, that is all;
She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her,
And just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination.
The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her;
And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "She is gone",
There are others who are watching her coming,
And other voices take up a glad shout,
"There she comes" – and that is dying.

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

'This too shall pass'

Whenever things are bad or difficult I think of this saying and it seems to help me.

Thanks for that Phoenix (I loved the explanation of your username on another thread by the way ). I remember this poem from the funeral of a friend who died of cancer in her thirties but wasn't sure of its origin.

I haven't heard that one before eGJ but it's lovely.

When I was widowed someone said "stay live until you can live again."

I found this comforting, might not suit everyone" but it was so right for me. Eat, shop, sort out the hundred things you have to sort out, look after your family... and now I do have days when I can live again.

There is a book called "All in the End is Harvest" which contains many such poems and sayings.

Definitely me too NanKate, find it very comforting.

Thank you for the beautiful poem (The sailing ship) phoenix it brought tears to my eyes and makes perfect sense.

Thank you Phoenix and eGJ for the poems.
I have copied and saved them both.

I always thought this was by Victor Hugo , I read the poem at my aunt's funeral . Researching this is what I found

This poem, and slight variataions, have been attributed to: Victor Hugo, Col. David Marcus, Margaret M. Stevens, Dr. Harold Blake Walker, Henry Van Dyke, and Bishop Charles Henry Brent. Due to the alleged attribution to Victor Hugo, and my obsession with the French author, I have been researching the origin of the quote for about ten years. In March of 2012 Google Books finally digitized a book from the early 1900s that gives credit where credit is due.

(Over the years I have conducted some limited research in libraries at a nearby university and a nearby seminary browsing works of Herny Van Dyke and Bishop Brent searching for the poem. However, my research has mostly been restricted to online sources.)
Result is
The Northwestern Christian Advocate, July 13, 1904, credits the poem to a Luther F. Beecher.