no scale Life and Death

I am sitting in a Hampton Inn near the airport in Indianapolis. We fly out tomorrow morning for home in Arizona. This morning we attended the funeral of Jeff's aunt who was 91 years old. She was a fiesty, fun, and very authentic woman, always speaking her mind and always having an opinion. She never missed sending a birthday card to each and everyone of us, every year. We will miss those cards and will be reminded of her at every birthday from now on.

In the program this morning was a quote about death that I had never seen before. It was written by Henry Scott Holland of Oxford, England and was part of a sermon that he had given in the late 1800s. It really touched me and I just want to share it you. I hope you will find it as fresh and uplifting as I have.

"Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar name. Speak of 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 that we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was. There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well. Nothing is hurt: nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!"