I can’t express how much your posting of this poem [ see below] means to me. My mom, a lifelong Christian Scientist, passed about 25 years ago. I received the news hours before I was to present a writing seminar for a Fortune 200 company in St. Louis. I still had to deliver the program, although doing so was difficult.
A few weeks later, I was in Texas facilitating the same course and was surprised when, right before the class began, a young woman whom I had never met before, handed me a sheaf of papers. (No explanation for doing so was given, other than “Someone told me to give this to you.” No one at that location or anyone in the company knew of Mom’s passing.) This poem was on top. In that moment, I felt Mom right there with me, comforting me and telling me the Truth. I turned away from the class to try to stop the tears and compose myself. I noticed he other pages were full of aphorisms—thoughts and advice for a lifetime. I was able to teach the two-day program with joy and gratitude.
I have been unable to find this poem again all these years and now, on a huge day for me that will involve important decisions that will greatly affect my life and, potentially, lives of children around the world, I read the beautiful poem you posted and hear my mother’s voice again and know that all is well.
With immense gratitude and appreciation,
Susan Adams
Death is Nothing at ALL
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.
Henry Scott Holland
Rev. Holland was an Anglican priest
(1847-1918)
Submitted to EI by George Wadleigh, C.S. – 01/19/2015
