14 Inspiring Quotes To Remember A Loved One
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Below are my favorite quotes and poems to remember a loved one -
When my father passed away, one of the things that gave me purpose was finding short quotes about the transition of a loved one I could put in his obituary.
Below are some of the sayings that brought me comfort, that I wish to share with you.
As you move through the below list of remembrance quotes, know the experience of opening after loss is also a gateway into a new way of appreciating, understanding, and connecting to life.
Following, you will find fourteen of my favorite quotes for boosting your Spirit in this process, along with citations and small backstories with the origins of each.
Let’s get started with the first quote:
14 Remembrance Of A Loved One Quotes And Poems On Dying And The Afterlife
1. Leo Buscaglia
Known as Dr. Love, Buscaglia is a motivational speaker known for learning to love, and the quote below is a popular one, thought to be from Beyond The Heartache.
I know for certain that we never lose the people we love, even to death.
They continue to participate in every act, thought and decision we make.
Their love leaves an indelible imprint in our memories.
We find comfort in knowing that our lives have been enriched by having shared their love.
2. William Penn
William Penn was a Quaker by faith who settled the state of Pennsylvania in the 1600s, so that all could practice their light in safety. He writes this:
The truest end of life, is to know the life that never ends.
For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. Death, then, being the way and condition of life, we cannot love to live, if we cannot bear to die.
They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies. Nor can spirits ever be divided that love and live in the same Divine Principle, the root and record of their friendship.
If absence be not death, neither is theirs.
Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still.
For the full quote, check out the Quaker Book of Faith, Chapter 22 on Bereavement.
3. Paramahansa Yogananda
Known as the first yoga master to take up residence in the West, Paramahansa Yogananda arrived in the United States in 1920.
The body is only a garment.
How many times you have changed your clothing in this life,
yet because of this you would not say that you have changed.
Similarly, when you give up this bodily dress at death you do not change.
You are just the same, an immortal soul, a child of God.
4. Carl Jung
The great psychologist from the late 1800s-1900s was interested in mediumship and metaphysics, and evolved philosophical and psychological thought forever. He writes:
What happens after death is so unspeakably glorious that our imagination and our feelings do not suffice to form even an approximate conception of it.
The dissolution of our time-bound form in eternity brings no loss of meaning.
Quote from Psychology Today round-up, "What's After This?": 30 Quotes on the Afterlife, Stephanie A. Sarkis Ph.D.
5. Clare Harner
Clare Harner (1909-1977) is thought to have written this poem on the afterlife in 1934.
Do not stand at my grave and weep:
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn’s rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush,
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there, I did not die.
6. A. A. Milne
How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.
Get the book here:
7. Unknown
I thought that I would miss you so, and never find my way.
And then I heard the angel say ‘She's with you every day.’
The sun, the moon, the wind, the stars, will forever be around,
Reminding you of the love you shared, and the peace she's finally found.
8. Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Famous for developing a grief model family could understand and predict, models have now evolved, but her work still remains foundational to all who study the life-death bridge.
In Hello From Heaven, she is quoted:
Death is simply a shedding of the physical body, like the butterfly shedding its cocoon
It is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, and be able to grow.
9. Henry Scott Holland
Former Professor of Divinity at Oxford, this below quote, was delivered at a sermon on May 15, 1910.
And what the face says to us in its sweet silence to us as a last message from the one whom we loved is:
Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was.
I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was.
To read the full sermon, visit WikiSource - The King of Terrors.
10. John Muir
Naturalist, writer and poet, Muir was an advocate for wild spaces who’s work in part led to the development of the National Park System in the United States.
In A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, he writes;
Let children walk with nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life, and that the grave has no victory, for it never fights.
All is divine harmony.
11. Kahlil Gibran
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Get the book here:
12. Rumi
Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes.
Because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation.
13. Charlie Daniels
Wrote this poem for the funeral of Ronnie Van Zant of Lynyrd Skynyrd.
A brief candle; both ends burning
An endless mile; a bus wheel turning
A friend to share the lonesome times
A handshake and a sip of wine
So say it loud and let it ring
We are all a part of everything
The future, present and the past
Fly on proud bird
You're free at last
14. Paulo Coelho
Never. We never lose our loved ones. They accompany us; they don’t disappear from our lives. We are merely in different rooms.
These are some of the most comforting quotes, sayings and poems about the transition into the afterlife I’ve found.
It can be helpful to print out your favorites and hang them up in the areas where you look each day, sometimes in the spot by the door right where you leave the house to boost your mood.
When the Spirit is freed of the body and goes beyond the container that we have previously experienced the soul, some people continue to experience the soul in new forms after it loses its body.
This is called afterlife visitations or afterlife experiences, and by their very nature, they are as diverse as they are entertaining.
As you remember your loved ones, keep your eyes open for these, and remember they’re still there.
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