Gone from my Sight.

The day before my Granny Liz passed away I read a booklet that they gave us at the hospice center called "Gone from my sight" . On the last page was this poem and reading it has probably helped me more than anything else.  I try to keep thinking of all of the people that were waiting for her on the other side.  It does not make me miss her any less but I do not worry about her.

Gone From My Sightby Henry Van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving 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,
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 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...

Death comes in its own time, in its own way.
Death is as unique as the individual experiencing it.

Anonymous