The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #37631   Message #525566
Posted By: Fiolar
11-Aug-01 - 05:35 AM
Thread Name: Lines of Comfort?
Subject: Lines of Comfort?
I found the item below, some years ago and was so taken by it that I had it printed and framed. I have given copies to friends who have lost loved ones and they have found it a source of comfort. Mudcaters may be interested. If it is already in the database apologies. "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 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." Henry Scott Holland (1847 - 1918) Canon of St Paul's Cathedral.