Another Farewell...

Our dear friend Henny passed away this morning after spending a month
in hospital. It's hard to believe that just over a month ago Jaime and
I were with her and Carmen eating lunch, laughing and joking.  She will
be missed but never forgotten.  At times like this it is hard to know what
to say to people but I personally find a lot of comfort in a poem by Henry
Scott Harold.  

Death is nothing at all

Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped away
into the next room.

I am I,
and you are you;
whatever we were to each other,
that, we still are.

Call me by my old familiar name,
speak to me in the easy way
which you always used,
put no difference in your tone,
wear no forced air
of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes we shared together.
Let my name ever be
the household word that it always was.
Let it be spoken without effect,
without the trace of a shadow on it.

Life means all
that it ever meant.
It is the same as it ever was.
There is unbroken continuity.

Why should I be out of mind
because I am out of sight?

I am waiting for you,
for an interval,
somewhere very near,
just around the corner.

All is well.

Henry Scott Holland
1847 -1918