Suggestions needed.

[Gendenwitha]

What's your favorite quote from a chilren's story? What's your favorite flower-related poem? I need to plan a memorial service for my mom.

One thing I'll be doing is getting tulip bulbs for attendees to take home and plant. This way they can remember that although something appears dead, there is rebirth to follow. Also, when they see the flowers in the springtime they are reminded of their loved one.

I am also looking for things to read at the service. Biblical suggestions are welcome, but my mom was a children's librarian for most of her life. I was thinking if I could find a bit of wisdom about life and death, or life in general, from a children's book, that would be good to either put in the memorial service bulletin, or read at the funeral, that would be fantastic.

So looking for appropriate Bible verses or poems etc to go along with the flowers / rebirth idea and your favorite pieces of wisdom from children's literature, maybe song suggestions too.

[EnviroBecca]

Well, this is a different take on the flower idea, but... When my friend's mother had terminal cancer, she wrote this poem after seeing a mother in Kmart telling her child that she couldn't afford to buy him a toy because they had to buy plastic flowers for his grandfather's grave. I'm recalling it from memory, so I may not have every word exactly right:

Don't put plastic flowers on my grave
To fade in summer,
Crack in winter.
Plant, instead,
A kiss on living flesh,
And think of me.
--Linda Thomas

I'm sorry about your mom. I hope the service helps you heal.

[kangamitroo]

i'm so sorry for your loss. what a challenging and precious job you have to plan this service.

no idea if these will help. the quotes come to mind are
from The Little Prince:
"Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
and
"What makes the desert beautiful," says the little prince, "is that somewhere it hides a well."

and
Christopher Robin to Pooh:
“Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

[Adele_Mommy]

So sorry for your loss.

I second the seeing with the heart quote from The Little Prince. That is one of my favorites.

The UU hymnal, Singing the Living Tradition, has a wonderful short hymn called "I Know This Rose Will Open"

Emily Dickinson wrote several flower-related poems. I like "May-Flower"

This is from Charlotte's Web:

Wilbur: Are you writers?
Charlotte's daughters: No, but we will be when we grow up.
Wilbur: Then write this in your webs, when you learn: This hallowed doorway was once the home of Charlotte. She was brilliant, beautiful, and loyal to the end. Her memory will be treasured forever.
Charlotte's daughters: Ooh, that would take us a lifetime.
Wilbur: A lifetime. That's what we have.

There is a passage in one of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, I think it might be Little Town on the Prairie, where Laura and Mary are walking on the prairie before Mary goes off to college. They gather flowers and talk about "goodness" (including the goodness of God, if that is a concern for you).

If I think of anything else I will post again.