David Harkins · 1981
She Is Gone
David Harkins · 1981
This poem's text is not reproduced here. What it says, when it was written and how it came to be read at funerals are facts about the work rather than the work itself.
Still in copyright · serany.app
What Serany thinks about this poem
Background
Harkins is a painter from Silloth in Cumbria who wrote it in 1981, in his twenties, about a woman who did not return his feelings. Nobody died. It was read at the Queen Mother's funeral in 2002 as 'He Is Gone', which is how most people met it, and it is frequently printed as anonymous or misattributed. Harkins is alive, which is why this page carries no text.
Meaning
Every line gives you two choices and asks which one you are going to take. You can cry that she has gone, or smile that she lived. You can close your eyes and wish her back, or open them and see what she left. It does not tell you grief is wrong, it tells you there is a second option, and it ends by asking you to do what she would have wanted.
Who's it for
Read this when the family want to give the room something to do. It asks the listener to choose, which helps a service that is trying to turn towards the rest of life, and it is popular for a mother or a grandmother. The 'He Is Gone' version exists and swapping the pronouns is normal. It is the wrong choice very soon after a sudden death, because being offered a choice you are not able to make yet can land as being told to cheer up.
If this one is not right
Now put it in the order of service
Try our order of service builder. Add the poems, songs and readings you have chosen, and we put the booklet together around them.
Make an order of service