A WORD TO THE DYING IN THE WORDS OF POETS – AND OTHERS
Poets – and others – often express for us those words and feelings held inside that we have trouble voicing.
If you are entering the dying experience, following are 14 things for you to consider that may help you, and also those who love you.
1.DYING IS SOMETHING WE ALL WILL DO.
Teach me your mood, O patient stars! Who climb each night the ancient sky, Leaving in space no shade, no scars, No trace of age, no fear to die. RALPH WALDO EMERSON.
For the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. i am not at ease, nor am I quiet. THE BOOK OF JOB
Dear God, be good to me. The sea is so wide, and my boat is so small. BRETON FISHERMAN’S PRAYER
To begin depriving death its greatest advantage over us, let us adopt a way contrary to that common one, let us deprive death of its strangeness, let us frequent it, let us get used to it. MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
If you want to die happily, learn to live.
If you want to live happily, learn to die.
LATIN PROVERB
2. BE WHO YOU ARE
Nature never repeats herself and the possibilities of one human soul will never be found in another. ELIZABETH CADY STANTON
I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading; it vexes me to choose another guide. EMILY BRONTE
For an impenetrable shield, stand inside yourself. HENRY DAVID THOREAU
To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
3. FEEL ANY AND ALL OF YOUR FEELINGS.
Seeing is believing, but feeling is God’s own truth. IRISH PROVERB
Be at peace with your own soul. Enter eagerly into the treasure house that is inside you. The ladder leading to the Kingdom is hidden within your soul. Dive into yourself, and in your soul you will discover the stairs by which to ascend. ISSAC OF NINEVAH
Below the surface-stream, shallow and light, Of what we say we feel – below the stream, A light, of what we think we feel – there flows with noiseless current strong, obscure and deep, The central stream of what we feel indeed. MATTHEW ARNOLD
Rich tears! What power lies in those falling drops. MARY DELARIVIER MANLEY
You are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full. MARCEL PROUST
4. LET YOUR FEELINGS OUT.
What soap is for the body, tears are for the soul. JEWISH PROVERB
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the oe’r fraught heart and bids it break. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
It takes two to speak the truth – one to speak, and another to hear. HENRY DAVID THOREAU
He speaketh not; and yet there lies a conversation in his eyes. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The best prayers often have more groans than words. JOHN BUNYAN
Out of the deep I have called to you, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice. PSALM 130
5. MAKE YOUR NEEDS AND WANTS KNOWN.
We want people to feel with us more than act for us. GEORGE ELIOT (MARY ANN EVANS)
Shared joy is double joy and shared sorrow is half-sorrow. SWEDISH PROVERB
Let those who have need of more ask for it humbly. And let those who have need of less thank God.
SAINT BENEDICT
The fragrance always remains in the hand that gives the rose. MAHATMA GHANDI
6. LET WHOEVER IS CLOSE TO YOU TAKE THIS JOURNEY WITH YOU.
Good company is a good coach.
JOHN CLARKE
We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world. And the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend. ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
It brings comfort and encouragement to have companions in whatever happens. DIO CHRYSOTOM
Bless to me, O God the earth beneath my feet. Bless to me, O God, the path whereon I go. Bless to me, O God, the people whom I meet, today, tonight, and tomorrow. CELTIC BLESSING
After you had taken your leave, I found God’s footprints on my floor. RABINDRANATH TAGORE
7. ASSERT YOUR RIGHT TO MAKE YOUR OWN DECISIONS.
Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. HELEN KELLER
Do not be too timid or squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. RALPH WALDO EMERSON
Of all paths a man could strike into, there is, at any given moment, a best path which, here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do. To find this path and walk in it, is the one thing needful for him. THOMAS CARLYLE
Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth. KATHERINE MANSFIELD (nearing her own death).
8. EMBRACE THAT WHICH PROMOTES YOUR OWN WELL-BEING AND GROWTH.
A day is lost if one has not laughed. FRENCH PROVERB
A life without festivities is a long road without inns. DEMOCRITUS
Come, let us give a little time to folly, and even in a melancholy day, let us find time for an hour of pleasure. SAINT BONAVENTURA
I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Die when I may, I want it said of me by those who knew me best, that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower where I thought a flower would grow. ABRAHAM LINCOLN
9. LET GO OF THAT WHICH BLOCKS YOUR WELL-BEING AND GROWTH.
Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die; that you have only one life, which is short and has to be lived by you alone;and there is only one glory, which is eternal. If you do this, there will be many things about which you care nothing.
TERESA OF AVILA
We must, strictly speaking, at every moment give each other up and let each other go and not hold each other back. RAINIER MARIA RILKE
May I tell you why it seems to me a good thing for us to remember wrong that has been done to us? That we may forgive it. CHARLES DICKENS
10. TELL YOUR STORY
What was hard to bear is sweet to remember. PORTUGUESE PROVERB
Some memories are realities, and are better than anything than anything that can ever happen to me again. WILLA CATHER
A good story is medicine to my bones. ABRAHAM LINCOLN
I shall remember while the light lives yet and in the night time I shall not forget. ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE
Childhood has no forebodings, but then it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow. GEORGE ELIOT (MARY ANN EVANS)
11.DECIDE WHAT YOU YET WANT TO DO,
THEN DO IT.
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Be living, not dying. LAO TZU
Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued. SOCRATES
Do you know that disease and death must needs overtake us, no matter what
we are doing? What do you wish to be doing when it overtakes you? If you have anything better to be doing when you are so overtaken, get to work on that. EPICTETUS
If I knew the world were coming to an end tomorrow, I would still go out and plant my three apple trees today. MARTIN LUTHER
12. NURTURE YOURSELF SPIRITUALLY.
One cannot die hidden from God. ITALIAN PROVERB
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. ALBERT EINSTEIN
Lord, one day I will live with you where you are. May you live with me where I am now. JOHN MASON NEALE
May the Great Mystery make sunrise in your heart. SIOUX PRAYER
What is it that dwelleth here I know not, yet my heart is full of awe and the tears trickle down. SAIGYO
13. DARE TO HOPE
Hope is patience with the lamp lit. TERTULLIAN
There never was night that had no morn. DINAH MULOCK CRAIG
When God shuts a door, God opens a window. JOHN RUSKIN
A death blow is a life blow to some who till they died, did not alive become;
Who had they lived, had died but when they died, Vitality begun. EMILY DICKINSON
You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills before you will burst into song, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. THE BOOK OF ISAIAH
14. WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH WHAT YOU NOW KNOW?
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; It is not a thing to be waited for, It is a thing to be achieved. WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
Wherever your life ends, it is all there. The advantage of living is not measured by length, but by use; some people have lived long and lived little; attend to it while you are in it. It lies in your will, not in the number of years, for you have lived enough. MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Grant me patience with the things that take time, tolerance of the struggles of others that may be different from my own, appreciation for all I have, and the willingness to get up and try again, one day at a time. THE SERENITY PRAYER
There is nothing I can give you which you do not have. But there is much, very much, that while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in the present instant. Take peace!
The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within reach, is joy. There is a radiance and Glory in the darkness, could we but see, and to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look. FRA GIOVANNI
13. DARE TO HOPE
Hope is patience with the lamp lit. TERTULLIAN
There never was night that had no morn. DINAH MULOCK CRAIG
When God shuts a door, God opens a window. JOHN RUSKIN
A death blow is a life blow to some who till they died, did not alive become;
Who had they lived, had died but when they died, Vitality begun. EMILY DICKINSON
You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills before you will burst into song, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. THE BOOK OF ISAIAH
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