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 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 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 eyes watching her coming,

and other voices ready to take up the glad shout,

"Here she comes!" -

and that is dying.

- anonymous

This poem was given to our family when we were at the hospice center and then a friend sent it to me also. It was so true. We watched my mother as she disappeared from our sight and was taken into the heavenly portals as others were watching her coming.