Thank you all for appreciating something that means so much to me. 
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Thanks for that AL. The hospital gave me a copy of that very poem, after David had passed.
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Your welcome Kate, I hope it didn’t upset you by triggering memories.
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Thank you AL, not at all. I have gotten a great deal of comfort from poetry during my grief. x
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Oh Kate - oh my! - (I write through my tears) - but you know how powerful this is! Thank you…
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I’ve read this before and passed it along to a bereaved mother. It is so true! Being patient & gentle with oneself is so very important in the healing process. Thank you…
I too played the Kinks version of ‘Days’ for my husbands funeral. I also found the following (lengthy but lovely) poem summed up my feelings.
He Let Go
He let go.
He let go. Without a thought or a word, he let go.
He let go of the fear.
He let go of the judgments.
He let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around his head.
He let go of the committee of indecision within him.
He let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.
Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, he just let go.
He didn’t ask anyone for advice.
He didn’t read a book on how to let go.
He didn’t search the scriptures.
He just let go.
He let go of all of the memories that held him back.He let go of all of the anxiety that kept him from moving forward.
He let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.
He didn’t promise to let go.
He didn’t journal about it.
He didn’t write the projected date in his Day-Timer.
He made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.
He didn’t check the weather report or read his daily horoscope.
He just let go.
He didn’t analyze whether he should let go.
He didn’t call his friends to discuss the matter.
He didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.
He didn’t call the prayer line.
He didn’t utter one word.
He just let go.
No one was around when it happened.
There was no applause or congratulations.
No one thanked him or praised him.
No one noticed a thing.
Like a leaf falling from a tree, he just let go.
There was no effort.
There was no struggle.
It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, he let it all be.
A small smile came over his face.
A light breeze blew through him.
And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…
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oh my, how this resonates within me…my Che was so strong, he never complained or asked for anything…his last words were a joke and we smiled…and then he let go… thank you for sharing this…
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Hi all, just been looking through this thread to try and find something to help given I am approaching the third year of my beautiful husband’s death and now reliving those awful, awful days, which I’ve tried so hard to forget without success.
I found this posted by our lovely Crazy Kate in Nov18, just as I joined the community. Thought maybe time for another airing. Thanks, Kate 
The following is from The Smoke Jumper by Nicholas Evans and it’s a favourite of mine:
If I be the first of us to die,
Let grief not blacken long your sky.
Be bold yet modest in your grieving.
There is a change but not a leaving.
For just as death is part of life,
The dead live on forever in the living.
And all the gathered riches of our journey,
The moments shared, the mysteries explored,
The steady layering of intimacy stored,
The things that made us laugh or weep or sing,
The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring,
The wordless language of look and touch,
The knowing,
Each giving and each taking,
These are not flowers that fade,
Nor trees that fall and crumble,
Nor are they stone,
For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand
And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand.
What we were, we are.
What we had, we have.
A conjoined past imperishably present.
So when you walk the wood where once we walked together
And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow,
Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land,
And spotting something, reach by habit for my hand,
And finding none, feel sorrow start to steal upon you,
Be still.
Close your eyes.
Breathe.
Listen for my footfall in your heart.
I am not gone but merely walk within you.
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How I love that poem, it’s perfect:
‘What we were, we are.
What we had, we have.
A conjoined past, imperishably present.’
Thank you our lovely Rainbow, for bringing it to the fore again as some may not know of it… 
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Just this morning I have ‘paused where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land’. There couldn’t be a more appropriate or evocative piece of writing for me today. Thank you. X
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Thank you Rainbow for posting those lovely words. It was just what I needed today.
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“The moments shared, the mysteries explored,
The steady layering of intimacy stored,
The things that made us laugh or weep or sing,
The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring,
The wordless language of look and touch,
The knowing”
What I had and what I miss 
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What lovely words and just needed. Thank you
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A beautiful poem and the words are so true.
Thank you Rainbow x
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“But I, no longer I In this clear place between my thought and silence See all that I had and lost, anguish and joys, Glowing like gentians in the Alpine grass, Blue, unpossessed and open” Aldous Huxley- from Island
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[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]
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 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)
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Stars by Kate Phipps
I am still here
sitting within the whispers of your heart.
So, if you start
to feel the well of tears
or the heaviness of all those fears
know this:
everything we had still exists.
Look up at the stars that decorate the night sky
You and I do not sit within a sad goodbye
all we had still survives.
So do not fret the darkness of your mind
for you can find me anytime.
I exist within the seed of new ideas and dreams
I am stitched within the seams of you
and everything you do.
I am still here
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Belief - by Ann Thorp
I have to believe
That you still exist
Somewhere
That you still watch me
Sometimes
That you still love me
Somehow
I have to believe
That life has meaning
Somehow
That I am useful here
Sometimes
That I make small differences
Somewhere
I have to believe
That I need to stay here
For some time
That all this teaches me
Something
So that I can meet you again
Somewhere.
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When I go to that silent place seeking solitude,
That place where only I can go,
I find you there.
And although the memory of your voice no longer resonates,
Your words linger on my lips.
They remind me that without you my life would have been less.
I have the photographs floodlit with smiles.
They remind me that it was you who prepared me for everything,
But this moment.
Chris Hopkins
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