The Ship

I attended a funeral recently. Robert was knowingly well loved and respected and his goodbye was said with grace, passion and pride. The passing must come to all. To some all too soon. And I listened to the words of the Minister as he read from Bishop Brent's poem and I thought to myself: I must make each moment count.

What is dying I am standing on the seashore, a ship sails in the morning breeze and starts for the ocean. She is an object of beauty and I stand watching her till at last she fades on the horizon and someone at my side says: "She is gone." Gone! Where Gone from my sight that is all. She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her, and just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination. The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her, and just at the moment when someone at my side says, "She is gone" there are others who are watching her coming, and other voices take up a glad shout: "There she comes!" and that is dying.