The Light Beyond

Soothe your soul with this unique collection of over 250 of the world's best funeral poems, quotations and readings

Look no further. You have just found the most comprehensive and thoughtful book of sympathy poems, quotes and readings available, with the insights of many of the world's finest authors on life, love and loss. You need never be lost for words again...

You may well have been called upon to write a eulogy or speak at a funeral at very short notice, leaving little time to find a suitable poem or reading, so our easily navigable book is available for instant download. Whoever you have lost, this book contains the perfect words to help you express your sorrow, pay tribute to your loved one and do justice to a life lived.

Click here now for our book of funeral poems Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep...

A Journey Well Taken: Life After Loss

This book is a widow's journey through loss, grief and renewal. It is the author's personal struggle following the illness and death of her husband of twenty years. This story deals with a family's grief and the challenges faced by those left behind. It is a journey familiar to many in today's society where one spouse outlives the other. Despite challenges that arise when things fall apart, loss can help us uncover our own strength, purpose and dignity. This is a tribute to survival and renewal as loved ones redefine the family unit, minus one.

Personally, I found A Journey Well Taken to be an honest, courageous and ultimately uplifting account of one woman's journey through the uncharted territory of bereavement. It will prove a great source of comfort and support for those traveling a similar path.

Practicing Conscious Living and Dying

I came across an excellent book recently called 'Practicing Conscious Living and Dying' which I thought some of our readers might find inspirational. Written by Annamaria Hemingway and published in January 2008, this collection of powerful and thought-provoking stories illustrates how each of the individuals concerned has come to understand death... They teach us that the preciousness of life must be lived with a sense of purpose and meaning, as a celebration of existence.

In the author's own words: "It is my sincerest wish that all those who read this book will find it inspirational and spiritually uplifting, that it will provide hope and strength to the dying and the bereaved, and offer compelling evidence for the possible continuum of consciousness after the death of our physical body."

Personally, I found it wonderful, beautiful, enormously interesting and endlessly fascinating... high praise indeed, but it really did fill me with hope and inspiration. Click here for more details.

If There's Anything I Can Do: how to help someone who has been bereaved

Today sees the launch of our new book, If There's Anything I Can Do. An immensely practical ebook for the friends and families of the bereaved, it shows you exactly how to help without getting in the way.

It is awful when someone you love goes through the unbearable pain of bereavement. You feel distraught and completely unable to help. You can't take away the grief, but there are many things you can do to make everyday life more bearable. And no-one knows better what those things might be than people who have been bereaved themselves.

This guide explains how it feels, and also passes on the advice of many other people who have been bereaved. These people know exactly what helped them most (and what was well-meant but not helpful) at the time, and in the months, weeks and years afterwards.

This ebook is full of little ways - and big ways - you can help someone you care about cope that little bit better. Click here to read more about If There's Anything I Can Do...

A lighter heart...

A quote from the excellent book A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis, written after the death of his wife Joy: "Something quite unexpected has happened. It came this morning early. For various reasons, not in themselves at all mysterious, my heart was lighter than it had been for many weeks. For one thing, I suppose I am recovering physically from a good deal of mere exhaustion. ... And suddenly, at the very moment when, so far, I mourned H. least, I remembered her best. Indeed, it was something (almost) better than memory; an instantaneous, unanswerable impression. To say it was like a meeting would be going too far. Yet there was that in it which tempts one to use those words. It was as if the lifting of the sorrow removed a barrier.

Why has no one told me these things? How easily I might have misjudged another man in the same situation? I might have said, ‘He's got over it. He’s forgotten his wife,’ when the truth was, ‘He remembers her better because he has partly got over it.’

Such was the fact. And I believe I can make sense of it. You can't see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears. You can't, in most things, get what you want if you want it too desperately: anyway, you can't get the best out of it. ‘Now! Let’s have a real good talk’ reduces everyone to silence. ‘I must get a good sleep tonight’ ushers in hours of wakefulness. Delicious drinks are wasted on a really ravenous thirst. Is it similarly the very intensity of the longing that draws the iron curtain, that makes us feel we are staring into a vacuum when we think about our dead?"

C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)

Can't seem to find the right words?

Perhaps our ebook can help. Launched yesterday, Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep is a carefully crafted and highly eclectic collection of over 250 poems, quotations and readings for funerals, memorial services and just getting by. The right words have a wonderful ability to soothe the soul...

Find out more about Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep, available for instant download

"This book is at least as good as - if not better than - anything you can buy in the shops. The range of poems is superb and the attention to detail impressive." W.F.

"A great book for the early days, but of course it's good for afterwards too (when in some ways things are harder as everyone goes back to their lives except you). I did have a cry when I read some of the poems, and felt much better for it." A.L.

Launch of our Amazon store

Just a quick post to mention the launch of our new Amazon bookstore which brings together many of our recommended books on grief and bereavement. As well as more general books to help you cope, we also have sections covering books for children, books for teens, men and grief, stillbirth, miscarriage, wills and probate and pet loss. Other sections deal with the loss of a parent, child or partner and include resources to help you cope following death by suicide. We hope you find the store useful... as regards the rest of the site, we're getting there (slowly).

Our book is on its way...

Great excitement today as I got the ebook covers back from the designer. I am absolutely delighted with them, and feel that he really 'got' the idea of the whole project.

Looking at the cover, the quote "My soul has wings, and in its freedom sings" sprang to mind, so we're putting that on the first page.

The book has over 250 poems, quotations and readings for funerals, memorial services and just getting by. Hopefully, it will be ready for the launch of the site on 16 April. We're working as hard as we can!