If you should go before me, dear, walk slowly Down the ways of death, well worn and wide, For I would want to overtake you quickly And seek the journey's ending by your side. I would be so forlorn not to descry you Down some shining high road when I came; Walk slowly, dear, and often look behind you, And pause to hear if someone calls your name.

Be grateful for the kindly friends that walk along your way; Be grateful for the skies of blue that smile from day to day; Be grateful for the health you own, the work you find to do, For round about you there are men less fortunate than you. Be grateful for the growing trees, the roses soon to bloom, The tenderness of kindly hearts that shared your days of gloom; Be grateful for the morning dew, the grass beneath your feet, The soft caresses of your babes and all their laughter sweet. Acquire the grateful habit, learn to see how blest you are, How much there is to gladden life, how little life to mar! And what if rain shall fall today and you with grief are sad; Be grateful that you can recall the joys that you have had.

Only the soul that knows the mighty grief can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come to stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.

When we honestly ask ourselves which persons in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate now knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

Faith draws the poison from every grief, takes the sting from every loss, and quenches the fire of every pain, and only faith can do it.

If it were possible to heal sorrow by weeping and to raise the dead with tears, gold were less prized than grief.

Everyone can master a grief, but he that has it.

If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.

"Be at peace with yourself.
If you are not at peace with yourself,
you are at peace with nothing."

from The Way is Within

Love of Peace will carry you across the ocean of Fear.