Gone From Our Sight

Mary Strand - 2/24/47 - 10/24/08

For anyone who hasn't heard yet, we lost mom yesterday to a sudden heart attack. Unlike dad who was diagnosed with cancer and died rather suddenly a short time later, her's has been a laundry list of lingering illnesses for many years. In fact, she was a breast cancer survivor starting in her early 40's and fought an amazing battle for years to remain on earth. She was a prisoner in her broken body for too many years, and she is truly set free now.

I was looking through my email today and found this little poem she sent to me just after dad died in June. She said someone gave it to her at her dad's funeral. I think it sums it up nicely for now.

GONE FROM OUR 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.

Henry Van Dyke