Welcome.

Recently my sweet maternal grandmother graduated from earth life.

Love you, grandma.

Years ago when I volunteered with hospice, part of the twenty hours of training I received entailed a lovely little booklet which had this poem by Henry Van Dyke in it. I’ve never forgotten it.

Gone From My Sight

“I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,

Spreads her white sails to the moving 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,

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 her.

And, just at the moment

when someone 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…”

(https://allpoetry.com/gone-from-my-sight)

And so her goneness is really a rebirth that puts her in a meaningful position to succor.

I LOVE this picture (and it’s doctrinally accurate, too).

I’m so grateful my grandma has taken her place among those who have commenced and can be a mighty force of help and strength to her not yet graduated posterity still possessing physical bodies.

I love what President John Taylor taught about those who have gone on: they “are more interested in us than we are in ourselves, ten thousand times, but we do not know it.”

Those are powerful words to suggest how very close those who have gone on are.

Hugs and love, grandma.

Unto all the world: Dying is a beautiful awakening. “[My grandma’s] diminished size is in me – not her.”