A ship sails and spreads her white sails to the
morning breeze and starts for the ocean. She is an object of beauty and I stand
watching her 'til at last, she fades on the horizon.
And someone at my side says, "She is gone."
Gone where?
Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large
in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her and just as able to bear
her load of living freight to its destination.
The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me,
not her; and just at the moment when someone at my side says, "She is
gone," there are others who are watching her coming and other voices take
up a glad shout "There she comes!" and that is DYING.
DEATH is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to the next room.
I am me and you are you, whatever we were to each
other we are that still.
Call me by my old familiar name.
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used.
Put no difference into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we
enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever a household word that it always
was.
Let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of
a shadow in it.
Life means more than it ever meant. It is the same as
it ever was. There is absolute unbroken continuity ...
Why should I be out of your mind because I am out of
your sight?
I am but waiting for you, for an interval somewhere,
very near, just around the corner.
All is well.
If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane,
I'd walk right up to heaven and bring you home again.
(Henry
Scott Holland (1847-1918))
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