Some thoughts on funerals

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Requiem 

Under the wide and starry sky,

Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea

And the hunter home from the hill.

- Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 – 1894)

Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer. His most famous works are Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

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"Some people hate funerals. I find them comforting. They hit the pause button on life and remind us that it has an end. Every eulogy reminds me to deepen my dash, that place on the tombstone between our birth and our death."

- Regina Brett

American author and newspaper columnist, who has written a number of motivational books and holds degrees in religious studies and journalism.

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"I hate funerals, and would not attend my own if it could be avoided, but it is well for every man to stop once in a while to think of what sort of a collection of mourners he is training for his final event."

- Robert T. Morris (1965 - )

 American computer scientist and entrepreneur. He is best known for creating the Morris Worm in 1988, considered the first computer worm on the Internet (for which he was prosecuted), and for companies he has founded.

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"So many of us have loved ones and people we really care about, and the only time we show affection is when they are gone. I have preached at funerals and you see loved ones who didnt even say hello to dear ones when they were alive. Give them hugs kisses while they are alive and need it."

- George Foreman (1949 - )

Retired American professional boxer, two-time World Heavyweight Champion, Olympic gold medalist,ordained minister, author, and entrepreneur. He won the World Heavyweight title with a second-round knockout of then-undefeated Joe Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1973 but lost the title Muhammad Ali in "The Rumble in the Jungle" in 1974. Foreman retired in 1977 and became an ordained Christian minister. Ten years later, he announced a comeback and, in November 1994, at age 45, he regained the Heavyweight Championship by knocking out 27-year-old Michael Moorer. Foreman is the oldest Heavyweight Champion in history, and second oldest in any weight class after Bernard Hopkins He retired in 1997 at the age of 48, with a final record of 76–5, including 68 knockouts.

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"I can't admit things; that's why I can't go to funerals and stuff like that. I find it very, very difficult to deal with that kind of reality. I shut myself off totally because it affects me so badly."

- Simon Cowell (1959 - )

English television talent judge and mentor, music and television producer, and music talent scout. He is most recognised as a judge on the English TV talent competition series Pop Idol, The X Factor, and Britain's Got Talent, and the American TV singing competition shows American Idol and The X Factor.

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Not, How Did He Die, But How Did He Live

Not how did he die, but how did he live?

Not what did he gain, but what did he give?

These are the units to measure the worth

of a man as a man, regardless of birth.

Not, what was his church, nor what was his creed?

But had he befriended those really in need?

Was he ever ready, with word of good cheer,

to bring back a smile, to banish a tear?

Not what did the sketch in the newspaper say,

but how many were sorry when he passed away

- Author unknown