Hi Soldier Boy, Very sorry to hear of your loss. I lost my Dad last year. Thing is he died two days after the unexpected death of my Uncle. Worse, my other Uncle was only just brought back after his heart stopped in an operation the following Wednesday. Needless to say it was a trying time. The song that got me through it? There were several but this one always works for me.


THE NEXT TO DIE

We meet 'neath the sounding rafters
And the walls around are bare
As they echo to our laughter
Twould not seem that the dead were there
                So stand to your glasses steady
                'Tis all we have left to prize
                Quaff a cup to the dead already
                And one to the next who dies

Who dreads to the dead returning
Who shrinks from that sable shore
Where the high and the haughty yearning
Of the souls will be no more
                So stand…

There's a mist on the glass congealing
'Tis the hurricane's firey breath
And tis thus that the warmth of feeling
Turns to ice in the grasp of death
                So stand…

There is not time for repentance
'Tis folly to yield to despair
When a shudder may finish a sentence
Or death put an end to a prayer
                So stand…

Time was when we frowned upon others
We thought we were wiser then
But now let us all be brothers
For we never may meet again
                So stand…

But a truce to this dismal story
For death is a distant friend
So here's to a life of glory
And a laurel to crown each end
                So stand…

Written by a Captain Darling supposedly during the Indian mutiny. Sentimental? maybe, does it make me cry? No, it makes me laugh and that's kind of how the old guy would have wanted it.
All the best,
Paul