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Month: November, 2019
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upon learning of the recent demise
of my younger sister, my only sibling,
a friend sent me the following passage
“Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away
into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains
exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we
lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we
were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar
name. Speak of 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 that we
enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my
name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be
spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death
but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because
I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing
is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was
before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we
meet again!”
it is usually presented as a poem, but
was part of a sermon, rather, given by
who composed it, at St Paul’s
Cathedral, in London, after the death
it expresses well the experience I’ve
had with others of my beloved
departed
intimations of my sister are already
popping up in my reality, soon, I told
another friend, I’ll be talking to her
more often than when she was not
gone
much as is the case with my father,
for instance, away some 30 years
now, but an abiding presence,
however mystical, still, and,
it appears, forever
I consider myself profoundly
blessed
R ! chard
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