Gone From My Sight (poem)

The other day Robin picked up one of the pamphlet's from Hospice - the one entitled "Gone from my sight". I said to her that it described the physical and spiritual phases of the dying process and that she could read it if she wanted. I also offered to read a section I found touching - an offer made selfishly so I could take the pamphlet out of her hands. She accepted the offer so I opened the book to the back page and read the following passage which is credited to an American author.

I can't remember ever having to call on my sprituality to get me through a specific experience before, but I actively asked for assistance to keep my lips moving and my voice from cracking as I read it out loud:

Gone From My 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