Julie,
  So sorry to hear that your mother passed.My thoughts are with
you,Barb

Please accept my condolences to you and your whole family.

May loving and happy memories be of comfort when you are ready for that.

Julie:

Even tho we have never spoke to each other, I would like to express my
deepest condolences.  My mother-in-law passed away this pass Mother's Day
and the pain and suffering as an ending.

May god bless you and  your family,
Dianne

Dear Julie,

Below is a compilation of quotes on death that many have found comforting,
from Lincoln to Buddha.   I have posted it several times but as long as our
loved ones die, these thoughts are always new.    Some are famous, some less
so.  I found them all to be of comfort when my mom died in the year 2000.
You may want to save it or print it out, to read later at your leisure.

Please accept my sympathies on the loss of your mother, and may your best
memories live long.....

*************

" In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all, and it often comes with
bitter agony.  Perfect relief is not possible, except with time.  You cannot
now believe that you will ever feel better.  But this is not true.  You are
sure to be happy again.  Knowing this, truly believing it, will make you
less miserable now.  I have had enough experience to make this statement" -
Abraham Lincoln

**********

"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."

What does man gain from all his labor in which he labors under the sun?  One
generation goes, and another generation comes; but the earth remains
forever.  The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hurries to its
place where it rises.   The wind goes toward the south, and turns around to
the north. It turns around continually as it goes, and the wind returns
again to its courses.  All the rivers run into the sea, yet the sea is not
full. To the place where the rivers flow, there they flow again.  All things
are full of weariness beyond uttering. The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.  That which has been is that which shall
be; and that which has been done is  that which shall be done: and there is
no new thing under the sun...

Ecclesiastes

**************

From Cymbeline

William Shakespeare

   Fear no more the heat o' the sun,
   Nor the furious winter's rages;
   Thou thy worldly task hast done,
   Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages:
   Golden lads and girls all must,
   As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

   Fear no more the frown o' the great;
   Thou art past the tyrant's stroke;
   Care no more to clothe and eat;
   To thee the reed is as the oak:
   The sceptre, learning, physic, must
   All follow this, and come to dust.

   Fear no more the lightning flash,
   Nor the all-dreaded thunder-stone;
   Fear not slander, censure rash;
   Thou hast finish'd joy and moan:
   All lovers young, all lovers must
   Consign to thee, and come to dust.

*******

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.

By Mary Frye

********************************

From Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra :

"Friends, this body is so impermanent, fragile, unworthy of confidence,
and feeble.
It is so insubstantial, perishable, short-lived, painful, filled with
diseases, and subject to changes.
Thus, my friends, as this body is only a vessel of many sicknesses, wise
men do not rely on it.
This body is like a ball of foam, unable to bear any pressure.
It is like a water bubble, not remaining very long.
It is like a mirage, born from the appetites of the passions.
It is like the trunk of the plantain tree, having no core.
Alas! This body is like a machine, a nexus of bones and tendons.
It is like a magical illusion, consisting of falsifications.
It is like a dream, being an unreal vision. It is like a reflection,
being the image of former actions.
It is like an echo, being dependent on conditioning.
It is like a cloud, being characterized by turbulence and dissolution.
It is like a flash of lightning, being unstable, and decaying every
moment.
The body is ownerless, being the product of a variety of conditions.

**********

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 long'd to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.

Robert Louis Stevenson. 1850-1894

************
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's
troublesome -- Jimi Hendrix
***********
Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear
in children is increased with tales, so is the other.  -- Francis Bacon
***********
If man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to
live -- Martin Luther King
***********
I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of
it. -- Mark Twain
***********
I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great
pleasure. -- Clarence Darrow
**********
To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life;
foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent. -- Buddha
**********
For what is it to die, But to stand in the sun and melt into the wind? And
when the Earth has claimed our limbs, Then we shall truly dance. -- Kahlil
Gibran
**********
Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent.
Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he
frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear
in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not -- Henry
David Thoreau (upon the death of his brother)
**********
Desire is half of life, indifference is half of death. -- Kahlil Gibran
**********
Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have
nothing whatsoever to do with it. -- W. Somerset Maugham
**********
It is foolish to be afraid of death. JUST THINK!! No more repaired tires
on the body vehicle, no more patchwork living. -- Paramhansa Yogananda
**********
"I don't mind dying, I just don't want to be there
when it happens."   Woody Allen
***********
"It's foolish to fear the loss of something, the loss of
which you'll never regret."   Unknown

*************
"I tried with indifferent success to follow his parting advice to me.  'Do
not grieve, Elder Brother.  We shall miss each other, but let it not be too
much.  As the Preceptor said  yesterday, you and I and all beings are
animated by the One Spirit.  No parting and no meeting ever really takes
place.  When we rejoice at a meeting or grieve at a parting, we are allowing
false understanding to take the place of truth.  Wherever you go, in this
life and in lives to come, I shall be with you.  The Light which shines
deep, deep within your own heart is my Light, the Light of all.  And when at
last we have gained the object of our great search, even apparent
differences and divisions will melt away.  You and I will know ourselves for
the One that we have never ceased to be.'"

This is from THE WHEEL OF LIFE by John Blofeld ..pg. l73-l74:

***********

"In Dead Earnest (Lee's Compost Song)," words by Lee Hays (1979), music by
Pete Seeger (1979), copyright Sanga Music Inc.

    If I should die before I wake,
    All my bone and sinew take
    Put me in the compost pile
    To decompose me for a while

    Worms, water, sun, will have their way,
    Returning me to common clay
    All that I am will feed the trees
    And little fishies in the seas.

    When radishes and corn you munch,
    You may be having me for lunch
    And then excrete me with a grin,
    Chortling, "There goes Lee again."

**************

When the Buddha was alive, a young mother named Kisa Gotami lost her only
child.  We all can understand how terrifying it would be for any mother to
see her child die.  Because of her intense love and affection for the child,
she lost her mind.  In that state, she believed that the child was just ill,
and she was determined to find a cure.  She carried the body on her shoulder
and roamed the city, asking each person she met to heal her child.  A wise
man who understood her distorted emotions sent her to the Buddha.

Holding the corpse in her arms, she arrived at a beautiful park where the
Buddha was teaching.  The moment she saw the Buddha, she appealed to Him to
heal the child.  The Buddha compassionately understood her emotional state.
Without mentioning anything about a cure, the Buddha said, "Your child has
died, but before I do anything about it, please go and collect some mustard
seeds from a house where no one has ever died."

Happily she thanked the Buddha and took off on her mission.  Her mind now
filled with hope, she went from house to house asking for mustard seeds.
Every house she went to had mustard seeds, but she could not find a single
house where there had been no death.  Eventually the truth dawned on her.
The grief and the pain of losing her beloved child faded away.

She understood her own insanity.   That deep awareness of death brought her
not only emotional healing of her personal trauma but also an understanding
of the true nature of life.   The awareness of death gave her a sense of
peace and harmony.  She properly disposed of the corpse of her child and
came back to the Buddha.

The Buddha knew of her transformation.  He counseled her and delivered a
dharma discourse on the nature of things.  Inspired by the wisdom of the
teachings, she asked the Buddha to ordain her as a nun.   After becoming a
nun, she meditated on death and, realizing the impermanent nature of all
existence, she attained enlightenment.
For twenty-five hundred years, Kisa Gotami has been one of the most famous
enlightened nuns in Buddhist history.  All the Buddhist children in Sri
Lanka learn her life story.  When I learned it, I was about eight years old.
It is a story that I have heard many times.  Each time I hear it and
contemplate its message of impermanence, death, and the implications that
follow, it adds another layer of profoundness to the meaning of life.  For
this woman, the move from ignorance to complete awareness of the truth of
her child's death brought liberation and enlightenment.

We too must train ourselves to awaken to the profound lessons about the
realities of life that are hidden within the experience of death.  These
lessons are waiting to lift us from the grief that is sapping our energy;
they are there to nurture us and to make our continuing journey, and that of
those around us, joyous and meaningful.  To realize this, we need to go
beyond the pain of our emotions and let a spark of truth touch our
hearts, as it did Kisa Gotami's.  After all, wouldn't that also be a
beautiful gift to give to our departed ones?

This quote was taken from: LESSONS OF THE LOTUS Practical Spiritual
Teachings of a Traveling Buddhist Monk -By Bhante Y. Wimala- Published by
Bantam Books Copyright 1997 by Bhante Y. Wimala

**********

The last words of the Buddha

O bhikshus! Do not grieve!     Even if I were to live in the world for as
long as a kalpa, our coming together would have to end.   You should know
that all things in the world are impermanent; coming together inevitably
means parting. Do not be troubled, for this is the nature of life.
Diligently practicing right effort, you must seek liberation immediately.
Within the light of wisdom, destroy the darkness of ignorance.  Nothing is
secure. Everything in this life is precarious.

Always wholeheartedly seek the way of liberation. All things in the world,
whether  moving or non-moving, are characterized by disappearance and
instability.   Stop now! Do not speak! Time is passing. I am about to cross
over.  This is my final teaching.

-Buddha

***********

The mother of Jigten Sumgon consoles a widow--

"Entering the house of the master, the wailing woman first encountered the
master's aged mother.  The old lady told her grief-stricken neighbor, "I am
sorry, dear sister, but this is the way of all composite things.  Don't take
it to heart; rather, meditate on the inevitability of death and
impermanence, and from your present misfortune happiness will come."

The widow, however, continued to weep and tear her hair.  The old lady then
said, "Listen, it's no use to dwell on your husband's death.  Don't keep
thinking about it; let your tears fall like rain now, but remember that this
experience will soon pass, just like everything else.  If you dwell on it,
you will continue to suffer.  I am rich with years, and my advice is don't
take anything to heart!"  Thus the wise old woman consoled her friend.

The widow immediately experienced consolation and peace.  She forgot about
Jigten Sumgon and went home; she completed her mourning period in the
traditional way, yet without excessive misery and despair.  By reflecting
upon the themes that her neighbor had suggested at the critical moment when
her anguish was most intense, she vastly developed in both virtue and
insight, and her spiritual practice progressed enormously.

Months later, Jigten Sumgon, the second Nagarjuna, was giving a series of
profound Mahamudra teachings in central Tibet.  He spontaneously sang:

"I am the carefree yogi who has realized the inseparable unity of the
Buddha, the guru, and my own heart and mind--Happy am I!  There is no need
for artificial devotion.  As the Hevarjra Tantra says: 'Samsara and Nirvana,
good and evil, have no real concrete existence.   Everything is relative.
To realize the true nature of samsara is to attain Nirvana.

The next day he cheerfully recounted the story of his aged mothers'
intercession, stating that to his way of thinking there was no non-dual
Mahamudra teaching superior to that bit of motherly advice:  To recognize
the impermanence and unreality of all things and to take nothing to heart.

**********

"It is not death itself we fear, but the idea of death, based on mental
impressions we formed during our years of thinking on the subject. Death is
in fact the most certain and natural consequence of our life, observable all
around us, all of the time, at the close of each day or the end of the
season. Yet within our personal field of reference, personal death has taken
a shape of its own, an illusory monster.  Living as we do in the parameters
of our thought, we cannot face the unknown. The unknown can never be
understood because the very process of understanding implies that it is
within our field of reference, which personal death clearly is not. The one
defining element within this field, its regulator and structure, is
psychological time. It is the notion of ending time, losing the handrail of
our continuity that renders death unthinkable. We therefore try not to think
about it because the only alternative offered by knowledge is to form a
thought image of death as an ultimate, insuperable foe - a terrifying ogre,
perhaps pacing ever nearer, ready at any moment to pounce."

"Death is in fact the most certain and natural consequence of our life,
observable all around us, all of the time, at the close of each day or the
end of the season. Yet within our personal field of reference, personal
death has taken a shape of its own, an illusory monster."

Krishnamurti paraphrased in Star of the East.

**********

A poem, composed by the Buddha himself:

Life is unpredictable and uncertain in this world.
Life here is difficult, short and full of pain.
A being, once born, is going to die,
And there is no way out of this.
When old age arrives, or some other cause,
Then there is death.
There is no way out of this.

Both the young and the old,
Whether they are foolish or wise,
Are going to be trapped by death.
All being are moving towards death.

Look: while relatives are watching,
Shedding tears and moaning,
People are carried away one by one,
Like cattle being led to the slaughter.

So death and old age are part of life.
Therefore, when the wise see how the world is,
They do not grieve.

You cannot know where the dead will go,
Nor can you know where the living have come from.
So it makes no sense to grieve.

Peace of mind cannot come from weeping and wailing.
On the contrary, it will lead only to more pain.

The person who cannot leave sorrow behind
Only travels further into pain.
Mourning makes one a slave to sorrow.

What people expect to happen
Is always different from what actually happens.
This fact leads to great disappointment.
This is how the world works.

So we can listen and learn from a wise person
As he gives up his grief.
When he sees that someone has passed away
And left life behind,
He says "I will never see this one again."

**
Of course, when someone we love very much dies, it is very difficult
to say goodbye. It is not easy to say "I will never see this one
again." We want very much to think that the loved one is still alive
somewhere. For this reason, in many cultures, survivors will offer
prayers for the deceased person, wishing that he or she will be born
again in good circumstances.

(comment added by Dayamaati Dharmachari, Richard Hayes)

****************

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

Macbeth, Act 5 Scene 5

Julie, I'm sorry for your family's loss, but so glad you have some happy
recent memories to comfort you. Your mom obviously knew she was loved.

Songbird

I am so sorry for your loss.  Your mother is now at peace.  I hope your good
memories help in your time of grief.

Camille