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 in 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...
H Van Dyke
Helen
17th September 2020
Thank you for setting up this memorial to Michèle.
We hope that you find it a positive experience developing the site and that it becomes a place of comfort and inspiration for you to visit whenever you want or need to.
Sent by Rowland Brothers on 07/09/2020
I am I and you are you, whatever we were to each other that we still are.
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
Life means all that it ever meant, it is the same as it ever was.
Extract from a poem by Henry Scott Holland