Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened, everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we still are.
Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in that easy way you always used. Put no difference in your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word it was, let it be spoken without effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it has ever meant. It is the same that it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity.
I am but waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. Nothing is past, nothing is lost.
One brief moment and all will be as it was before.
by Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918) Canon of St.Paul's Cathedral
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