"Why love, when losing hurts so much? The happiness then is part of the pain now....." (C.S. Lewis) I am sorry the end is upon you, Tom. I too have had to say goodbye to a beloved wife and there is no good way through it. This exquisite scene from LOTR is perhaps the model we hope for the one departing - not the end, but repose and freed…
"Why love, when losing hurts so much? The happiness then is part of the pain now....." (C.S. Lewis) I am sorry the end is upon you, Tom. I too have had to say goodbye to a beloved wife and there is no good way through it. This exquisite scene from LOTR is perhaps the model we hope for the one departing - not the end, but repose and freedom from the pain suffered now. When my first wife died, someone sent me a poem about a ship leaving a port to sail the seas, and as she left the harbor people cried out "There she goes", while in the destination's harbor others cried "Here she comes....." May it be so.
That is the poem our hospice nurse shard on the initial visit with my mother in law; the nurse had been in my m-I-l’s English class as a kid (she was 61 and died from lymphoma). It really does capture the hope there is with death.
Bruce, This poem is very close to my heart. It helped me when my mother was dying and I always hung on to it. I ended up reading it a few years later at my nephew's memorial. Thank you for posting this. This and the scene from LOTR together are very comforting.
"Why love, when losing hurts so much? The happiness then is part of the pain now....." (C.S. Lewis) I am sorry the end is upon you, Tom. I too have had to say goodbye to a beloved wife and there is no good way through it. This exquisite scene from LOTR is perhaps the model we hope for the one departing - not the end, but repose and freedom from the pain suffered now. When my first wife died, someone sent me a poem about a ship leaving a port to sail the seas, and as she left the harbor people cried out "There she goes", while in the destination's harbor others cried "Here she comes....." May it be so.
The poem is "Gone from my Sight" by Henry van Dyke -
I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white
sails to the morning 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 and 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
at my side 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.
That is the poem our hospice nurse shard on the initial visit with my mother in law; the nurse had been in my m-I-l’s English class as a kid (she was 61 and died from lymphoma). It really does capture the hope there is with death.
Bruce, This poem is very close to my heart. It helped me when my mother was dying and I always hung on to it. I ended up reading it a few years later at my nephew's memorial. Thank you for posting this. This and the scene from LOTR together are very comforting.