Several different musical and song interpretations of Do not Stand at My Grave and Weep have been written and published, with different titles, often with variations to the original words. The poem has appeared, and continues to, in slightly different versions, and there are examples also of modern authors adding and interweaving their own new lines and verses within Frye's work, which adds to confusion about the poem's definitive versions and origins. For many years (and presently still among many people) the poem's origin was generally unknown, being variously attributed to native American Indians (especially Navajo), traditional folklore, and other particular claimant writers. The poem, in its various versions has for many years been firmly in the public domain. At some time after Margaret Schwarzkopf's mother's death, friends of the Schwarzkopf family arranged for a postcard to be printed featuring the poem, and this, with the tendency for the verse to be passed from person to person, created a 'virtual publishing' effect far greater than traditional printed publishing would normally achieve. It's fascinating that the poem came into such widespread use, and this is perhaps because it was not conventionally copyrighted and published. Apparently in an interview since writing the poem Frye said that the 'words just came to her', and she also said that she wrote her poetry to bring comfort and pleasure to others, rather than to profit from its publication.
Mary Frye, it is said, wrote the poem on a brown paper shopping bag.
This seemingly was the inspirational prompt for Mary Fry to write the verse, which (in various forms) has for decades now touched and comforted many thousands of people, especially at times of loss and bereavement. This led to Margaret Schwarzkopf's comment to Mary Frye, according to the apparent history of this, that she had been denied the chance to 'stand by her mother's grave and shed a tear'. The friend was a young German Jewish girl called Margaret Schwarzkopf, who felt unable to visit her dying mother in Germany due to the anti-Semitic feeling at home. Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905-2004) was a housewife from Baltimore USA, when a visiting friend's mother died, and this prompted Mary Frye to compose the verse, which she said was her first real attempt to write poetry. The poem can be found with different titles however, notably 'I Am', reflecting the repetition of that phrase in the verse. Originally the verse had no title, so the poem's first line, 'Do not Stand at My Grave and Weep' naturally became the title by which the poem came to be known. The following is based on the Mary Frye claim and the research which apparently substantiated it.