This week we’re grateful to Jennifer Levenson for sharing At the End – her way of saying goodbye to a parent. She wrote this poem for her dad’s funeral in 2008 and has been glad to let others use and adapt them since then. She offers this poem to you, if it’s helpful.

 

AT THE END

We stand as testament to your will

That governs us post mortem still

You wanted that we bring you here

In words unambivalent and clear

To spend your afterlife at ease

Scattered near your favourite trees

  

At your final resting place

Soon there will be not a trace

Of your ashes on the ground

But your presence will be found

In every scrap of DNA –

Lots of which is here today.

As in your life, your will will out.

That we obeyed you there’s no doubt

You would like we make no fuss

Of how you’ll linger long with us

We loved you more than words can show

But now’s the time – to let you go

See more here about funerals readings and poems. There’s help too with understanding about different forms of expression around death – eulogies, elegies, obituaries. See another Flinger’s experience of writing a eulogy for his wife Christine.