Memorial Assistance

Sarita

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Hey Poets and Poetry readers,

I need a bit of help. I come to you with a heavy heart. A dear friend of mine committed suicide 10 days ago. I am hosting a memorial open house on Sunday and I'd like to have something to read, but the overwhelming grief.... I just can't think about anything these days. He was in my life for more than 20 years, my older brother's best friend for most of those years, and a very dear friend to me and mine. In recent months, he spent 3-5 nights a week at my house, eating, talking, laughing, commiserating.

Does anyone have any poetry reading suggestions? I need a direction to start. Any direction.

thanks.
 

cray

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i'm no help in the suggestion department
...just wanted to send out a virtual hug, sara. :Hug2:
 

dclary

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Sorry for your loss. I don't know that any of us can really help here... It has to come from you, or it won't be right.
 

Ambrosia

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I am sorry for your loss, Sara. I have lost a couple friends to suicide. It is always hard on those left behind. Take gentle care of you during this time. I don't have any suggestions for poems or memorial writings. If I come up with something I will post it for you.
 

LimeyDawg

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"Remember" Christina Rosetti
"Do not stand at my grave and weep" Mary Frye
"Gone from my sight" Henry Van Dyke
"Funeral blues" W H Auden (one of my personal faves)
 

KTC

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I'm so terribly sorry, Sara. I have no suggestions right now, just deep condolences for your loss.
 

Cassiopeia

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Hi Sara,

I'm so sorry. :Hug2:

Last year, I was given the task of writing my mother's obituary and a tribute to read at her funeral. I can only suggest what I did. I sat down and I started making a list of things she had accomplished, memories, her dreams, favorite songs...and from that you can write just about anything. Write about his smile, his jokes, his laughter. I know its hard but try not to focus on the choice he made to remove himself from your lives.

Just free write. It helps to ease the grief. Have a huge box of tissues and a nice cup of tea. Close your eyes and move through the times you loved and laughed with him.

The wonderful thing is you get to find comfort in all the things that you shared with him through your memories.

Again, Sara, I'm so sorry for your loss. My heart goes out to you and your family.
 

Dichroic

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You wouldn't happen to be in Idaho, would you?
We had a colleague commit suicide around then (I say "around" because he was missing for several days before he was found.) Those of us who worked with him remotely from other continents are shocked and wondering what we can do, with so little knowledge of the situation.

Most likely your friend is a differnt person. But our shock over my colleague may still provide a starting point for you, in talking not about his death but his life and all the people he touched and helped during it. Maybe it would be appropriate to read a poem about friendship rather than death.
 

Dichroic

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Also, there's Auden's Funeral Blues:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

and Millay's Dirge Without Music:

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.
Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,--but the best is lost.
The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love, --
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.
Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave,
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
 

Sarita

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Thank you all so much for your kind words and assistance.

Di- I'm not in Idaho, rather PA. But I feel your sense of shock and loss. And both of the poems you offered are lovely. I had not read the Millay. Thank you for sharing it.
 

Norman D Gutter

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Sara:

Sorry for your loss. May God give you strength during this time and through the memorial.

Consider Longfellow's "The Fire of Driftwood". An odd title for a poem about loss, but it is, but also about hope.

NDG