Mom passed this morning at sunrise, I had been with her everyday at sunset. You really can’t plan these events, but she went comfortably. This is my favorite recent photo of her my sister took and some other favorites during the years.
Gone From My Sight
I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white
sails to the morning breeze and starts
for the blue ocean.
She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until at length
she hangs like a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky come
to mingle with each other.
Then, someone at my side says;
“There, she is gone!”
“Gone where?”
Gone from my sight. That is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull
and spar as she was when she left my side
and she is just as able to bear her
load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her.
And just at the moment when someone
at my side says, “There, she is gone!”
There are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take up the glad
shout;”Here she comes!”
And that is dying.
by Henry Van Dyke, a 19th Century clergyman, educator, poet, and religious writer
