Gone From My Sight

Grieving a loss takes it's toll, especially when you say the final goodbye to someone and attend the funeral. Since this post is a day late for that very reason, I thought I'd just post a thought about dying by Henry Van Dyke. It's something to think about.
     I am standing upon the seashore.  A ship at the 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 the sky come to mingle with each other.

     Then someone 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 the 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.