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When we traveled together to Kentucky last June, Marilyn, Anne Vigneri, and I had some opportunity to talk about death and dying.....and the theme of our conversation was that death is a continuum and natural part of life...another step...not an end. The one who has gone ahead cannot
be seen by those of us left behind, but they are not lost to us.
It's like watching a child grow. The infant leaves, and the toddler
takes her place. Then the toddler moves on and the school age child is
there, and then the teenager. You can no longer see, and touch and kiss
and tuck the toddler in for the nite, but you know she is not gone, she
still exists in the teenager. The physical baby is gone forever, but
you do not mourn her loss; she has normally progressed to the next level
of growth.
So it is with death, we agreed. It's moving on to the next step in our
growth.
Being a lover of poetry, I found some solace in this poem by Robert
Lewis Stevenson. It speaks to that idea.
Verses Written in 1872
Though she that, ever kind and true,
Kept stoutly step by step with you,
Your whole long, gusty lifetime through,
Be gone a while before-
Be now a moment gone before-
Yet doubt not; soon the season shall restore
Your friend to you.
She has but turned the corner-still
She pushes on with right good will
Through mire and marsh, by heugh and hill
That selfsame arduous way-
That selfsame, upland, hopeful way,
That you and she, through many a doubtful day
Attempted still.
She is not dead-this friend-not dead,
But in the path we mortals tread
Got some few trifling steps ahead,
And nearer to the end;
So that you, too, once past the bend,
Shall meet again, as face to face, this friend
You fancy dead.
Push gaily on, brave heart, the while
You travel forward mile by mile,
She loiters, with a backward smile,
Till you can overtake;
And strains her eyes to search her wake,
Or, Whistling as she sees you through the brake,
Waits on a stile.
Until we meet again dear Maz,
Lois
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