Friday, April 06, 2007

here she comes...

In memory of my Grandmother
Jennie Baisden Endicott
(The chapel at Community Hospice, Ashland, KY)


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 their 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.

Anonymous

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

So deeply thought provoking. Are you planning to lead the group monday?
Our prayers are with you, love.
anon.

lorie said...

Thank you--I thought it was beautiful. I wish I'd written it.

Yep, I'll be at group Monday--might even share a poem I wrote while at hospice.

Thank you for your prayers!

Anonymous said...
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Anonymous said...

Thanks for your discription of dying. We just went to a memorial for a friend and even though we know where she is the the words that someone wrote touched my heart and were a comfort.