A Girl's Reflections

I knew it when the phone rang but I did not believe it even after my sister told me our great-aunt passed away.

Later that evening when I spoke to my uncle I felt like I was someone else.

“My condolences, I am so sorry for your loss”

I said.

“Our condolence, our loss” he responded with a voice that sounded lost to grief.

I do not know exactly when it happened.

But now..

I am swaddled with grief. It is as if my mind, body and soul has finally caught up with reality.

Death is nothing at all.
I have only slipped away to 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 into your tone.
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow.

Laugh as we always laughed
at the little jokes 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 effect.
Without the trace of a shadow on it.

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

All is well.

Death is nothing at all is a poem by Henry Scott Holland.