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...

Free sympathy ecards now online

Our free sympathy ecards are now available for you to use. They show various images from our inspirational movie and are a great way to show someone who has suffered a loss that you care and are thinking of them. And if you're not sure what to write, we've included a link to our helpful article on How to write a sympathy card...

Want a link from our site to yours, or to be featured on The Light Beyond?

We'd like more good quality content, and if you have a website you might like a link from our site to yours, so this is the solution we've come up with:

The quickest and easiest way to get a link from The Light Beyond to your own site is to go to The Light Beyond bereavement forum and sign up (it's fast and free). Then read these simple guidelines and create a forum signature which includes a link to your site. After that, you can post on the forum as often as you like; your posts don't have to be very long, but please do make sure they are useful, helpful, informative, comforting or inspiring for our readers. Each time you post you will get a link back to your site automatically.

Please note that a forum post itself is NOT the place to advertise your site or services - that's what the forum signature is for, and this appears at the bottom of every post you make. Posts are for genuinely useful, helpful content. We read every single post and will remove inappropriate entries.

On The Light Beyond bereavement blog, we also blog about sites which are particularly useful and relevant to our readers. To recommend a site for the blog, the Links page or to contact us about any other ways we could work together, please use the Contact Form. We look forward to hearing from you!

Grief Healing: help on the journey

In the course of creating The Light Beyond, I've come into contact with many other wonderful websites and resources to help people on their journey through grief, and I'd like to start sharing them with you all. I don't benefit from suggesting them in any other way than knowing that you too will find them helpful - and that makes me feel good...

So let's start with one of my favourites: www.griefhealing.com. This is the work of hospice bereavement counselor Marty Tousley, whose work I highly recommend. GriefHealing.com has many articles and books, poems, quotes and discussion groups, as well as Marty's own healing courses.

Here are Marty's own thoughts on grief:

As one who's been studying attachment and loss and specializing in bereavement counseling most of my professional life, I'd like to tell you how I came to be interested in the subjects of loss, grief and healing, and what qualifies me to speak to you about them in a way that I hope will be meaningful and helpful to you.

Having experienced, struggled with and come to terms with my own particular share of "necessary losses" over the years, I've come to realize that those losses have taught me some of life's most valuable lessons.

One of my earliest memories was seeing my mother's reaction to the news that her father had died. I was four years old at the time, and my beloved Grandpa had been my only living grandparent. I remember too how heartbroken my parents were when my baby brother was born prematurely and died when I was six. I learned very early on that no matter how much I may have wished it otherwise, death was part of living in this world, and it could happen to the very young as well as the very old.

At the age of five I was diagnosed with progressive curvature of the spine. Just as I was entering my teenage years, I underwent extensive spinal surgery that left me flat on my back in a body cast for eight months, homebound and separated from my eighth-grade classmates. Barely two years later I shattered my knee in a horseback-riding accident and spent three months hospitalized with my leg in traction, once again separated from my classmates and missing the second half of my sophomore year in high school. I've learned some things about loss of body image, loss of relationships and loss of freedom.

As an adult I've gone through more than a dozen operations to surgically correct or alleviate various problems with my bones and joints. I've learned about aches and pains, loss of physical strength and mobility, and loss of independence.

Since I chose to place the demands of my husband's career ahead of my own, in our 38 years together I've moved many times, each time having to up-root and re-establish myself personally and professionally in several different states. I've learned about the difficulties of leaving comfortable homes and familiar neighborhoods, and the sadness of saying goodbye to family, friends, colleagues and positions I have loved. I've learned about losing the pride and comfort of being known, respected and valued in my work, and the challenges of having to start all over again.

My husband Michael and I were just out of college when we married in 1965. Less than two years later we were mourning the unexpected death of our second son, David, who succumbed to a blood disorder when he was barely three days old. A few months later Walter, one of our nearest and dearest friends suffered a heart attack and died. Two years after we moved our young family to New Jersey in 1976, my physician father Harry collapsed while making a house call in northern Michigan and died of cardiac arrest. Later that same year Michael's sister Delores died, followed by his mother Beatrice. Soon after our move to Arizona in 1992, both Michael's father Ralph and my mother Evelyn died. I've learned about the pain and sorrow of losing loved ones to death.

An animal lover all my life, I've loved and lost— in every way imaginable — every pet I've ever had. But when my very special little dog Muffin died suddenly in 1986, I was absolutely devastated, and totally unprepared for the intensity of my reaction to losing him. I've learned about the important roles that animals play in our lives, how we can become so attached to them, and why it hurts so much when we lose them. I've learned about the pain of losing treasured animal companions.

In my work with bereaved individuals, families and groups, I have witnessed over and over again the triumph of survivors over their deepest sorrow, suffering and pain. I have seen them experience profound moments of healing and growth. I've learned about surviving and transcending grief.

I've learned that losing someone or something we love can remind us not only how fragile and temporary life is, but also how important it is to appreciate what we do have: life, health, family, friends and loved ones. And I've learned that the difficult process of healing through loss can leave us with greater emotional strength and self reliance, and a greater awareness of what really matters in life.

www.griefhealing.com

The chalice of repose...

I came across The Chalice Of Repose the other day, a site which may well be of interest for those caring for a loved one who is nearing the end of his or her life. One mission of The Chalice Of Repose (it has many different missions and ways to help) is to "Lovingly care for the physical and spiritual needs of the dying with prescriptive music, and to educate the general public about contemplative musicianship, music-thanatology, monastic medicine, and the possibilities of a blessed, peaceful or conscious death." To this end it provides (amongst other things) absolutely gorgeous, celestial music CDs and many thought-provoking and interesting books. Check out their store to see the kinds of gifts and resources available.

Dealing with bereavement in the UK

If you have lost a loved one and are based in the UK, an extremely useful resource to know about is the Death and Bereavement page of the Directgov site. It covers all the 'official' aspects of bereavement, such as registering a death, arranging a funeral, documents and information needed when someone dies, tax affairs after a death and lots more.

Grief and loss on Squidoo

Finally, I have got to grips with Squidoo, so we now have our own bereavement lens. You can find it at www.squidoo.com/the-light-beyond and it's also a good place to go to find other grief and loss sites and resources. It's kind of a social networking site, quite easy to get the hang of, and I'm hoping it will bring The Light Beyond to the attention of lots of new people who might need it... please do take a look and rate our Squidoo lens if you're a member, it all helps!

Could our bereavement forum help YOU?

The Light Beyond bereavement forum is gathering pace, and now has over 500 posts. Offering words of wisdom and advice for the bereaved, the grieving and those preparing for the death of a loved one, could it help you or someone you know?

If so, please help us to spread the word. The more people know about the bereavement forum, the more people we can help, and that's our mission in life.

We have also just added a Chat Room and an Inspirational Thoughts forum to inspire and uplift the readers of this caring, tolerant community. Why not visit the bereavement forum and take a look?

Message from the heart: how to write a sympathy card

When someone you know loses a loved one, the simple, thoughtful gesture of writing a sympathy card or condolence letter can bring an untold measure of comfort to the bereaved. In the quest to find the perfect words of condolence for a sympathy message, however, many people become overwhelmed and may avoid writing altogether.

If this should happen to you, begin by accepting the fact that no matter how carefully you choose your words, your condolences will not make everything better – nothing can do that. But a thoughtful, sincere sympathy message, written from the heart, can be a soothing balm, allowing the bereaved to feel your support and know that she is not alone in her sorrow.

Bereavement forum just launched

Today is a big day for me, as it sees the launch of our bereavement forum at www.thelightbeyond.com/forum. I've been working on it for months and at times struggled greatly with the technology, but finally got to grips with it! The forum motto is: 'Kindness in another's trouble, courage in your own', and I would like to make it the place to go on the Internet to find comfort after a loss.

Please do visit the forum and post your concerns, questions, thoughts, stories or anything else which is relevant. There are many different categories to post in. You might feel a bit alone to start with, but don't let that put you off. Plenty of other people will be along in the next few weeks to join you.

You will need to register before you can post (it's free), but you can browse other people's posts without joining. Bear in mind that we've never had a forum before, so if you have any trouble registering or if anything else seems unclear, please let us know and we will try to improve it.

Many thanks to you all for your continued support and encouragement! It is much appreciated.