WE COME AND WE GO

New Hampshire Maple

October 29, 2014

WE COME AND WE GO

Having just spent the last week in New Hampshire, I was inspired by the few remnants of fall foliage that were still pulsating their color outward. I pulled over while driving to capture a photo of the glorious golden yellow maple above.

The inevitable transition from living to dying is evident everywhere there is life. I was in New Hampshire to say goodbye to my dear brother-in-law, Roger, a salt-of-the-earth Yankee, a truly good man. Roger made his transition after a long illness yesterday morning, peacefully in his sleep, surrounded by his devoted wife, (my extraordinary sister), and their loving family. They loved him. We all loved him.

All of us lose those we love to the transition we call death. It is an inevitable journey we are all making. Miraculously, Roger's granddaughter, Scarlet, was born 24 hours before he left his body. They passed in the ethers, perhaps with a high five.

We come and we go.

Godspeed.

“… 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 this 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. Nothing is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!” 

~ Henry Scott Holland, Death Is Nothing At All