And That’s Dying
Dave Mason sent me the following with his
introduction included:
I read the following from some literature
that was provided by Home Health &
Hospice to my mother to help her as my
father dies. I thought it put an interesting spin on life and death. I thought
you might appreciate it. It reads as follows:
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
mingle with each other.
Then someone says, "There, she's
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.
Van Dyke, Henry, "And That is
Dying," Gone From My Sight -- The Dying
Experience, Barbara Karnes, RN. Stilwell,
Kansas. 1995.