Gone?

The following is a poem that was read by the pastor at my dad's memorial service. I first heard it years ago and I thought it was awesome then......

“I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads it’s white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. It is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch him until at length he 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, he is gone!”
“Gone where?”
Gone from my sight. That is all. He is just as large in mast and hull and spar as he was he left my side and he is just as able to bear his load of living freight to his destined port.

His diminished size is in me, not in him. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: “There, he is gone!” there are other eyes watching his coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here he comes!”

And that is dying.”

-Henry Van Dyke